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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26209057">the wave we're on</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/tennciel/pseuds/caelam'>caelam (tennciel)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, Minor Character Death, Road Trip, this is an ode to hitting the road and going nowhere, with the cosmically-unmatched person you are unfortunately in love with</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 08:27:07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>26,144</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26209057</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/tennciel/pseuds/caelam</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Felix Fraldarius had always had a soulmate. It was decidedly not Sylvain.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier, the vaguest implication of felix/annette</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>44</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>215</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Sylvix Big Bang</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>the wave we're on</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>here's a big preemptive thank you for reading this fic—i hope you have half as much fun reading as i did writing it!</p>
<p>this is my first big bang, as well as the longest thing i've ever written, featuring art (with more shortly incoming!) from the wonderfully talented <a href="https://twitter.com/SORDHAND?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor">sordhand</a>—please go show them some love!!</p>
<p>the idea for this fic was born out of me thinking about a world where "having a soulmate" was vaguely synonymous with how "having a crest" is in canon—rare, coveted, and kinda shitty. i also love road trips, and somehow those ideas combined into this fun little franken-fic. since they're driving around it's also somewhat a modern au, although I use in-game year and location names. i consulted a map of fodlan and then elected to ignore it, so the route they take doesn't make sense—please suspend your disbelief, hahaha. </p>
<p>title is taken from <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzsGc6F18NU">i fold you</a> by elder island, which i listened to on repeat for at least half of the time i spent writing this. </p>
<p>thank you again, and please enjoy!!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>
    
  </p>
</div><p>In the year 1153, Miklan Gautier was born without a soulmate. </p>
<p>Seven years later, Sylvain Gautier was born with one, which will turn out to make the previous point irrelevant.</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>The peak of the afternoon is just beginning when Sylvain’s car battery dies. He’s on a highway, thirty miles in between a gas station and bumfuck nowhere, when the engine starts to sputter and stall. </p>
<p>He yanks the steering wheel to veer off the road just as soon as she lets out her last little cough, and he takes out and re-turns the key and gets nothing. The sunlight bouncing off the metal of the ignition mocks him.</p>
<p>“Ingrid,” Sylvain says into his phone, kicking his feet up onto the dashboard. “You’re still in Galatea now, right?” </p>
<p>Sweat is sticking to the back of his neck, and Sylvain moves to open the door and get a wave of fresh air—not that it helps. How Galatea manages to be a frozen wasteland in the winter and still this fucking hot in the summer truly is a marvel of God. </p>
<p>“Yes, of course,” is what Ingrid answers. She sounds distracted, and suspicious, but people are often suspicious when it comes to Sylvain. </p>
<p>“Cool, me too,” Sylvain says. “So listen, I’ve got jumper cables in my trunk, and I know your car’s old, but it’s probably still in good enough condition to—“</p>
<p>“Hold on,” goes Ingrid, cutting him off. “<i>Me too?</i> You’re in <i>Galatea</i>?”</p>
<p>“I mean, I wasn’t <i>planning</i> to be, but yeah, my car seems to have had other ideas.”</p>
<p>“Sylvain,” Ingrid sighs, with all her various meanings punched into the word. “I—hold on.” </p>
<p>She pulls away from the phone to address whatever is distracting her, the sound mostly muffled by rustling. Whatever she’s saying is high and sharp, and sounds like an argument.</p>
<p>Then she’s back. “Where are you?”</p>
<p>“Side of the road. I’ll text a pin of my location.” </p>
<p>“Fine,” she says. “I’ll be there as soon as I can, just—” and she begins to argue on the other side of the line again. It’s so muffled Sylvain thinks she must have her hand pressed over the microphone, meaning that whatever it is, she really doesn't want Sylvain to hear it. She’s gone for longer this time.</p>
<p>When she finally comes back she sounds exasperated. “Okay, I’m about to be on my way. Fair warning though, I’m—I’ll have someone with me.”</p>
<p>“I know you’ve never been good at romance, Ingrid, but jumping a friend’s car in the woods is an <i>incredibly</i> weird date.”</p>
<p>“It’s not that,” she snaps. “It’s—you’ll see.” The line goes dead. </p>
<p><i>Okay</i>, Sylvain thinks. He’s spent enough of his life dissecting Ingrid’s moods and dodging her ire when necessary, so he’s sure whatever weird shit that’s going on now isn’t something he can’t handle.</p>
<p>It’ll take her a while to get here, anyway. He might be in Galatea, but he’s still decidedly in the middle of nowhere, and he knows Ingrid is going to curse when she opens his text and realizes just how far out he actually is. Better she has company to vent to so he doesn’t get a think piece titled <i>irresponsibility</i> that she’s been lovingly rehearsing her entire drive. </p>
<p>After all, Sylvain isn’t certain of a lot of things, but he is sure of this—Ingrid will still come to pick him up, no matter how far he is. That’s the nice thing about being friends with people of Ingrid’s particular brand of stubbornness; they stick to their convictions and won’t ever surprise you, even if they probably should, even if you wish they would.</p>
<p>It’s useful, at least, when you’re Sylvain. Nothing like collecting misplaced faith from people who once gave it out and now won’t take it back. Honestly, he runs off the stuff. </p>
<p>And ultimately, it’s what’s left him here: stranded on the side of the road, melting in his now useless car, hopeless but for the lingering affection of someone he’d somehow charmed into caring about him long ago. He’d almost find it poetic, if he weren’t so sweaty. </p>
<p>As it is, he <i>is</i> really fucking sweaty, and there’s little he can do about it. With a grumble and a sigh, he stretches, pushes the driver’s seat back as far as it will go, and throws an arm over his eyes, preparing for the best nap he can manage under the circumstances.</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>As a kid, Ingrid believed in soulmates more than anyone else. She rented out all the sappy stories the library had—stories of soulmates who made each other impossibly strong, whose power of love allowed them to live forever, or other heartwarming bullshit of various flavors.</p>
<p>It’s <i>amazing</i>, she’d say, or <i>inspiring</i>, or <i>romantic</i>. “You’re so lucky,” she’d always tell Sylvain, “you’re so lucky your parents are soulmates.” </p>
<p>“Sure,” is what Sylvain would answer back then, because he was still too young to really get it, the way fate sometimes pairs a controlling egomaniac with someone who’d never have the strength to stand up to them. It takes time to unlearn the ways your parents are bad for each other, time to notice that maybe <i>that</i> is not what love is supposed to be like, after all—and Sylvain did not yet have that kind of time. It’d be a while before he would. </p>
<p>Still, Ingrid was the only person in her family or class at school with a soulmate, and that made her special, and prone to believing every fairytale she read. She lit up about it, gushing and glowing, asking Sylvain what he thought it would be like. </p>
<p>"Do you think you’re ready?" she would say. "Happiness with one person for the rest of our days, can you imagine?"</p>
<p> </p>
<p>When Ingrid’s soulmate died, Sylvain was the only one to successfully manage to drag her out of her room. </p>
<p>He took her to her favorite restaurant. She was half as loud as normal and held her shoulders in a way that made her look two sizes too small, but she was still outside and eating a meal, and every twitch of her facial expressions—even if it <i>was</i> a roll of her eyes—felt like a little victory.</p>
<p>He’d had time by then, time to have a couple lessons about soulmates pounded into his head by his darling brother, and even more go crawling under his skin through watching his parents. It had been decently enough time to decide he no longer believed in soulmates at all.</p>
<p>So in retrospect, he thought they’d have solidarity. What better way to find out that soulmates are a scam than having your own unfairly snatched from you at barely 15 years old? He thought she was angry. She <i>should</i> have been angry.</p>
<p>He’d been through it already—the disbelief, the questioning, the anger, the uneasy acceptance. He’d thought it was his job to get her to acceptance too. </p>
<p>It’d been a bright day. A Tuesday. Their waitress bumbled around, sunlight from the windows catching on her copperplate nametag, and Sylvain said, “anyway, it could be nice,” offhandedly. </p>
<p>“I mean, you’re totally free now,” he continued, regrettably, like a train heading straight for a wall without the wherewithal for self-awareness whatsoever. “You can go anywhere and do anything, be with anyone, and you never have to think about something useless like a <i>soulmate</i> ever again.”</p>
<p>He would remember, later, that the thing that made him look up had been the clatter of her fork hitting the plate. The sound of it sat ugly between them. He stared in shock as Ingrid’s face flushed pale, red, nearly green—sharp and punched.</p>
<p>“Don’t you <i>dare</i> say that,” she’d said, quiet as death. She was curling and uncurling her hands into fists on her jeans, taking deep breaths, remembering how. “Sylvain, you— don’t you dare talk like that.”</p>
<p>He remembered it, still—the slits of light from the windows, the curl of her fingers, the caged look in her eyes—and he’d known, then, the truth: that despite everything, Ingrid would <i>always</i> believe in soulmates more than anyone else, even when she probably shouldn’t, even when he wished she wouldn’t.</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>When Sylvain comes to, Felix is there.</p>
<p>Ingrid has already pulled her car up facing Sylvain’s and popped the hood, and now she’s jostling his shoulder with equal parts care and annoyance. The sun is starting to set, making her glow like a red ghost or some other remnant of the dream he was just having, and with her is Felix, who is there. </p>
<p>“You shouldn’t sleep with your car doors wide open,” she says. “Come on, get up. Let’s get this done.” </p>
<p>Sylvain vaguely feels like he’s been run over, which probably has something to do with the stiff crick in his back from sleeping in the seat and the miserable little layer of sweat that has now dried over him. It also must be why his brain is having such a hard time processing any of the visual information it’s intaking—such as Felix, who is—yeah, he’s there.</p>
<p>“Where are your jumper cables? Trunk?” Ingrid asks. Sylvain just blinks. </p>
<p>“Felix,” he says, intelligently. </p>
<p>“Sylvain,” replies Felix, who sounds mostly the same, even though his haircut is worse now.</p>
<p>“Ingrid,” says Ingrid. “Glad we’re all acquainted. I’m opening your trunk.”</p>
<p>Without waiting, she does exactly this, and Sylvain does in fact begin functioning enough to recognize he should get up and help her before she wreaks havoc on his car. </p>
<p>“Don’t just rifle through it,” Sylvain complains. “Seriously, Ingrid, it’s organized, hey—” </p>
<p>It’s too late, though, as she’s already haphazardly tossed out a blanket, someone’s left shoe, a novella compilation with half the pages dog-eared—the clothes in his emergency-clothing-corner are now rumpled and unfolded, Christ, the sheer <i>audacity</i>—</p>
<p>“You should empty your car out more often,” Felix says. First real sentence he’s said to Sylvain in years, and it’s a pithy suggestion about cleanliness habits—habits that Felix, for the record, has never been very good at.</p>
<p>“Thanks for your valued feedback,” Sylvain dryly replies. “I’ll be sure to pass it along to my supervisors.” </p>
<p>Felix harrumphs, but his reply is cut off by Ingrid triumphantly raising the now-found jumper cables in a clenched fist. “Victory,” she announces. “I’m going to get to work. Sylvain, stay out of my way, you’ll distract me.”</p>
<p>“Oh, so I just <i>don’t </i> get to know the reason for this fun little childhood reunion?” Sylvain laughs as he gestures to, well, everything.  “I mean, not that the blast from the past isn’t great and all, but—” </p>
<p>Ingrid turns and shares a long and indecipherable look with Felix, who does not meet her eyes for very long. “He’s not helpless,” she settles on. “Felix can tell you why he’s here himself.”</p>
<p>Sylvain had thus far been attempting to not look directly at Felix, as he wasn’t sure doing so would be good for his, like, brain. Or anything else, for that matter. He gives it up now.</p>
<p>Felix hasn’t gotten any taller. This is the first thing Sylvain notices. The second thing Sylvain notices, to his great and inevitable misfortune, is that despite Felix’s dark eyebags and general wet-cat disposition, looking directly at him still makes Sylvain’s stomach feel like it’s LARPing as an Olympic gymnast. </p>
<p>Sylvain grins and hopes it comes off convincing enough. “Well?” he prompts, to Felix.</p>
<p>Felix, for his part, is very good at coming across like minor tasks and basic explanations are of great inconvenience to him. He folds his arms and shifts on his feet, huffing. “I’ve been spending some time in Galatea, that’s all,” he says. </p>
<p>“He lives with me now,” yells Ingrid from where she’s fucking around by the hoods of their cars. “Well, my apartment building, at least. He was at my place when you called and insisted on coming along.”</p>
<p>“Aww, missed me?”</p>
<p>“Don’t be stupid,” Felix says. “I just didn’t think Ingrid should have to deal with you all by herself.”</p>
<p>Sylvain laughs. “She does that all the time.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, well.”</p>
<p>“I’m starting my car,” Ingrid calls out. “Watch the clips.”</p>
<p>Ingrid’s car purrs to a start, and nothing blows up. The lack of explosion is perhaps the most blissful thing to happen to Sylvain today.</p>
<p>“Success,” Sylvain calls to her, giving a thumbs up. She gestures for him to come closer to her while they wait for Sylvian’s battery to charge up. Felix trails behind him.</p>
<p>“Where are you headed after this?”</p>
<p>“I dunno,” Sylvian shrugs. “Wherever’s convenient to get my baby in a shop and make sure nothing’s seriously wrong with her.”</p>
<p>Ingrid puckers in displeasure at the referral to his car as <i>his baby</i>, but graciously does not comment on it.</p>
<p>“I know a guy in Galatea,” she says. “But Felix should follow us there to make sure your car doesn’t break again on the way.”</p>
<p>“Felix?”</p>
<p>“He’s driving my car back— I’m riding with you. I want to talk to you.” Oh, excellent. Turns out he won’t be escaping the lecture after all.</p>
<p>“What, they haven’t revoked Felix’s license yet?” Sylvain jokes. The last time he was in a car with Felix driving was back in high school, when he somehow hit a curb straight-on whilst going nearly 70 miles per hour, and upon impact only said, with the same sort of casual nonchalance that one would remark upon the weather, <i>whoops</i>.</p>
<p>“Very funny, asshole,” Felix quips back. “I can drive myself just fine.” He’s spent most of this conversation hovering nearby with a vaguely threatening aura, which has been mostly ruined by the fact that both Ingrid and Sylvain are entirely immune to him.</p>
<p>“He’ll be fine,” Ingrid says, not without glancing over the interior of her car like she might be taking it all in for the last time. </p>
<p>Sylvains laughs, and Felix tightens the grip of his fingers where his arms are folded over his chest. Some things never change, it seems. </p>
<p>“My car’s probably alright now,” Sylvain says. “Should I try to turn it on?”</p>
<p>Ingrid shrugs. “Be my guest.”</p>
<p>Sylvain’s car <i>is</i> alright, and comes back to life quietly and without incident. It’s the simple curse of his life, balancing shit luck with great luck—so that, in the end, he can’t even get the satisfaction of justifiable complaint. So be it.</p>
<p>Ingrid goes and checks with Felix to make sure he knows where they’re headed, before clambering into the passenger seat of his now-running car as if she owns the place. Sylvain allows it.</p>
<p>“Just head east toward town,” she says. “I’ll direct you once we get closer.”</p>
<p>“Aye aye, captain.”</p>
<p>He puts it in gear and cruises onto the road. Then he glances into the rearview mirror and accidentally makes direct eye-contact with Felix, perched behind the wheel of Ingrid’s car behind them. </p>
<p>Somehow the sight rips the air right out of him, and Sylvain pinches himself hard on the leg, just once, just to be sure.</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Felix Fraldarius had always had a soulmate. It was decidedly not Sylvain. This was a fact that Sylvain spent his early formative years passively aware of, and his later teenage-angst years much more acutely aware of.  </p>
<p>Like most of Sylvain’s remaining significant relationships, he didn’t particularly remember meeting Felix. Friends of parent’s friends, someone knew so-and-so, so on and so forth. Friendship is so easy and uncomplicated when you’re all kids, where the only requirement to be likable is to be even vaguely the same age and conveniently in the right place at the right time. </p>
<p>But the fact of the matter was that Sylvain <i>did</i> know Felix, and had always known Felix, in the lovely and unremarkable kind of way that only kids can enjoy. Kid Felix liked to cry and complain and whine until things went his way. His favorite pastimes were convincing adults that nothing was his fault via well-aimed round-eyed looks and getting his snotty nose all over Sylvain’s shirt. </p>
<p>Kid Sylvain’s pastimes were convincing other kids that he knew everything about everything, and sometimes, convincing himself. </p>
<p>At what point Felix saw through the facade, Sylvian isn’t sure. At what point Sylvain himself saw through the facade— he’s not confident on that one either. </p>
<p>There were phases to his life, lined up like <i>gifted kid, soulmate haver, extraordinary Sylvain</i> sliding into <i>everything is bullshit, actually</i>, and sometimes finding himself in the uncharted open waters of <i>maybe everything isn’t pointless, after all</i>. Sylvain had never been good at keeping track of where he fell at any given moment, and never expected anyone else to be either.</p>
<p>So it was unsurprising, when Felix couldn’t. It wasn’t like they had a fight and couldn’t patch the damage. They didn’t grow up and become fundamentally incompatible people. They had just <i>grown</i>, bending into various shapes until neither of them were facing the same direction, and for a while Sylvain thought he might have been cursed, and Felix—beautiful, brutal, inaccessible Felix—was just… part of it. </p>
<p>Whether or not that had actually been true, in the end—well, the jury was still out on that one.</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>“Got any requests?”</p>
<p>“What for?”</p>
<p>“The radio. You know, music? Appreciating the arts?”</p>
<p>“Oh. No, play whatever you like.”</p>
<p>“You’re not allowed to complain about whatever I pick, then.”</p>
<p>“I won’t.”</p>
<p>So the radio clicks on. In spite of it, the car feels silent.</p>
<p>Sylvain sighs. “Ingrid.”</p>
<p>He’s been waiting— for the lecture, for the real explanation, for anything. Instead they’ve just been cruising, floating in the anxious grey space between <i>I need to talk to you</i> and <i>so, listen, it’s just</i>—</p>
<p>“I know, I know, give me a minute,” Ingrid mutters, running a hand down her face. “I’m trying to figure out where to start.”</p>
<p>Sylvian hums. He taps his fingers against the steering wheel. “You and Felix are eloping,” he guesses. Ingrid makes a wounded animal sound.</p>
<p>“<i>God</i> no, why do you always—”</p>
<p>“I mean, you said he <i>lives with you—</i>”</p>
<p>“But not like <i>that</i>! Jesus, Sylvain, even ignoring all the other parts, he and I don’t even—we both have—we both had—” she flounders a bit, her hands making a strange non-gesture, before coming back to her lap in defeat. “We’re not each other’s soulmates,” she finishes.</p>
<p>But she let it slip, and Sylvain caught it—the key piece to this puzzle, the little golden nugget of information that lets the rest of it <i>click-slide</i> smoothly into place.</p>
<p>“Had,” Sylvain repeats. The syllable feels somehow crude in his mouth, like something that shouldn’t be said. Ingrid’s mouth presses into a thin line. </p>
<p>“Yes,” she answers, finally. “Had.”</p>
<p>Here is what Sylvain learns: Felix Fraldarius met his soulmate on a Friday, on the first day of a regional teacher’s conference. They had looked at each other and just—known, immediately. Like something out of a low-budget romance film, the Cupid moment, the hearts in the eyes. </p>
<p>On Saturday evening, they went on an almost-date with some other teachers to a karaoke bar. Felix’s soulmate loved to sing despite not being very good at it, and Felix was absolutely smitten with her regardless, in a way that was both unusual for him and extremely easy to make fun of. And yes, Sylvain, everyone there to bear witness <i>did</i> take healthy advantage of the opportunity.</p>
<p>They were both teachers at different schools, both living busy lives, but at the end of the night they still agreed to go on another date the next Thursday evening. They exchanged numbers. They giggled and blushed like embarrassing primary schoolers.</p>
<p>On Tuesday, a freak car accident gave Felix membership to the same club that Ingrid has spent almost half her life in.</p>
<p>Upon hearing it, something in Sylvain’s gut curdles. </p>
<p>He’s never liked the word “deserve”—too many spiraling thoughts about all the things he’s deserved and the ones he probably didn’t. But God—God, Felix didn’t fucking deserve this.</p>
<p>“Coming to Galatea was a compromise,” Ingrid says. “Afterward, he… he wouldn’t go to counseling, wouldn’t talk to anyone about it, didn’t even go to the funeral. He threw himself into work and ignored my calls. I only found out about it secondhand when I asked Mercedes if she knew what had happened to him.” She shifts and sighs. </p>
<p>“I pestered him a lot to get help, threatened to quit my job and move back to Fhirdiad so I could watch over him, and then surprisingly, he suggested he come to Galatea instead. Said he didn’t mind uprooting, as long as it would make me leave shut up and leave him alone.”</p>
<p>Sylvain laughs. Felix definitely wanted her company, but god forbid he be nice about it. “Sounds like him.”</p>
<p>“It’s been a few months since then,” Ingrid says. “But even now, he still hasn’t really—well, you know what he’s like.”</p>
<p>This time, Sylvain’s laugh is just a bit hoarse.  Not pained, really, but bordering. Outside, the trees of Galatea pass by uncaringly, each blur of green the same as the last.</p>
<p>“Yeah,” he says, throat thick. He tightens his grip on the steering wheel. “I know.” </p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Ingrid’s mechanic, apparently, is a short little guy named Ashe. Sylvian likes him immediately. When Ashe sees Sylvain’s car roll into the lot, he lets out a whistle that Sylvain can hear even through the rolled-up windows, and gives her two definitive pats on the hood. </p>
<p>“She’s a beaut,” he tells Sylvain. His grin is mostly teeth.</p>
<p>This is, unfortunately, the last positive thing that Ashe has to say to him.</p>
<p>Sylvain’s battery is toast. Not his fault, Ashe assures him, just regular wear and tear—hot weather’s a bitch, Sylvain should’ve gotten a few more months out of this battery at least, but what can you do, right? </p>
<p>Replacing a battery isn’t that expensive. The problem is that Sylvian has a nice car, and Ashe doesn’t have a spare battery that’ll fit in his make and model just laying around. “I’ll order it right away,” Ashe says, “but the closest manufacturer is all the way out by Garreg Mach, and, well….”</p>
<p>Garreg Mach and all its surrounding areas run on God Time, which means that everything will happen When It’s Meant To, and you oughta not suggest otherwise. It’s also delightfully far away, and therefore Sylvain’s pit stop in Galatea is definitely going to be longer than expected.</p>
<p>No longer than a week, Ashe assures him. Hopefully sooner. </p>
<p>So it goes. Sylvain suggests that he find a hotel, but Ingrid isn’t having any of it. She likes to do the thing where she moves around as if looking after you is a great deal of work—but if you suggest that maybe she just shouldn’t do it, she’ll bristle.  </p>
<p>The good news is that Sylvain has always liked bristly people—he finds that stabbing himself with their sharp edges leaves him less room to sharpen his own. It’s why he’s liked Felix and Ingrid from the start.</p>
<p>Ingrid declares that Sylvain should just sleep on her couch for the next few days. “Unless, of course, you have some sort of previous hookup here in Galatea you’d rather stay with instead,” she adds, but it’s a non-suggestion, meant to make him sheepish. Ingrid has always been the type of person to idly believe that people can be shamed into becoming good.</p>
<p>Sylvain doesn’t take the bait. “You’re the queen of Galatea,” he winks, “You know you’re the only one for me out here.”</p>
<p>It isn’t even all the way true—he definitely does have previous hookups floating around this city like bad ghosts. He spent too much time passing through and hanging around while growing up for anything otherwise. But, so long as she’ll put up with him, he’d much rather stay with Ingrid. That much is truth, at least.</p>
<p>So Sylvain packs a hasty bag with some of the stuff he has in his trunk and they return to Felix, waiting for them in Ingrid’s car in the parking lot of Ashe’s shop. It’s not far to the apartment complex, but Sylvain is still not particularly in the mood to take his life into his own hands, so—</p>
<p>“Let me drive,” Sylvain says, hovering outside the driver’s side door. Felix remains stubbornly seated, both hands on the wheel.</p>
<p>“I can drive just fine.”</p>
<p>“It’s not that.” It is that. “I just want to take it out for a spin. I’ve never driven this car before.”</p>
<p>“<i>You</i> just don’t think I can drive.”</p>
<p>“I—”</p>
<p>“It’s my car,” Ingrid reminds them, “and <i>I’ll</i> drive it. Felix, move.”</p>
<p>Neither of them can really argue with that, so Felix grumbles and clambers out of the front seat and into the back. Ingrid then gives the now-empty driver’s seat a long look, and then turns to Sylvain and raises one eyebrow. She makes a vague gesture with one arm, an open invitation. </p>
<p>“You can drive,” she tells him. Sylvain laughs. Felix lets out a wail of betrayal from the backseat that he will later vehemently deny ever making.</p>
<p>Felix goes straight to his own apartment upon arrival, giving Sylvain one last illegible look before he does so. Sylvain doesn’t quite look back, not completely. He looks firmly about one inch above Felix’s head instead, smiles convincingly, and then goes up to Ingrid’s.</p>
<p>Ingrid’s apartment is the kind of place that matches her: plain, straightforward, easy to parse and stand upon. It’s clean. All the wall decorations are at perfect right angles. </p>
<p>“Felix is in the unit directly below this one,” she’s saying, as she leads him to the couch so he can set down his backpack. She always does this, guides him around to achieve the satisfaction of being a proper host, despite the fact that the entire apartment is three rooms in total and Sylvain has seen all of her shit many times before.</p>
<p>“Sometimes if I’m playing music too loud he throws stuff at his ceiling and it feels like a small earthquake is happening in here,” she continues, “He’s also got my spare key, and a bad habit of just letting himself in so he can steal from my spice cabinet—”</p>
<p>The face Sylvain is making must be unpleasant, because she falters. </p>
<p>“Right, sorry, you…. probably don’t want to hear more about him,” she mumbles. </p>
<p>She knows, of course. Ingrid has always known Sylvain and Felix and all the fun and terrible things Sylvain never should have felt thereafter. How could she not know?</p>
<p>But, this—all this evidence of <i>life</i> in its casual messiness—spice cabinet thievery, Felix’s easy gait as he quietly climbed the stairs of <i>Ingrid’s apartment complex</i> in Galatea, where he <i>lives</i> now—it makes Sylvain’s gut twist again, makes him feel like he’s not quite sure where he’s standing.</p>
<p>There’s an elephant in the room, and it’s been stumbling around ever since Ingrid first told him about Felix and his newfound soulmate grief. Sylvian swallows hard and decides to bite the bullet.</p>
<p>“Ingrid,” he begins, unwavering. He’s had a lot of practice with this in particular—the steadiness, the pretending. “Why didn’t you <i>tell me</i>?”</p>
<p>Her answering inhale is so sharp Sylvain can feel it from across the room. </p>
<p>“How could I? When would I?” she bites out. She doesn’t sound angry, mostly just… sad, a little desperate, and maybe—something else. “Sylvain, you haven’t exactly been <i>around</i>.”</p>
<p>Understatement of the fucking year, probably. He’s almost pleasantly surprised by how much it still cuts. </p>
<p>“People haven’t heard from you at <i>all</i>. I never really know where you are, or what you’re doing, or who you’re with. Do you know how I found out your dad died, Sylvain? <i>My</i> dad mentioned it casually over lunch. It was old news by then. He was appalled I didn’t know.”</p>
<p>Sylvain winces.</p>
<p>“I know you like to keep your distance.” Ingrid’s fists are at her sides. “I’ve always tried to let you. All you told me was that you were travelling, and I thought, maybe you just needed some <i>space</i>, so I tried not to worry. I didn’t know where that space was supposed to begin or end. You didn’t tell me.” Her voice is shaky. “You never tell me anything.”</p>
<p>“Sorry,” breathes Sylvain. His ribcage feels like it’s being pushed inward, crunched by the lovely hammer of <i>‘the consequences of his own actions’</i>. How horrifying it is, to disappear and realize that somehow, you were missed. “Shit, I know, Ingrid. I’m sorry.”</p>
<p>The clock on Ingrid’s wall ticks, and the tense moment stretches into something else. If they’ve killed the elephant, Sylvian is not sure he likes its absence. </p>
<p>He doesn’t even realize Ingrid has stepped closer to him until he feels her touch the outside of his hand. He startles, and she pulls her hand back. </p>
<p>“It’s not too late to come back,” she says. “To settle somewhere, to have… a normal life. You can have a normal life, Sylvain.”</p>
<p>She’s wrong about that, though. The time for <i>normal</i> and Sylvain is way past. There might never have been room for it in the first place. He takes one step back, tries to preserve the distance between them.</p>
<p>“I dunno. Sounds boring,” he says, with a laugh. His heart’s not in it. </p>
<p>He doesn’t like the expression Ingrid makes at him in response, so he looks at the wall and its decorations instead—easy, simple, right-angled. He straightens his shoulders and tries to let himself be the same.</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Does Sylvain need space? Sure, maybe in the same way a gambler needs three sevens on a slot machine. </p>
<p>Sylvian keeps space because no one should have to see the circus he’s got going on in his head. Sylvian keeps space because his father’s ego and paranoia worked tirelessly to construct a world for him full of red lines and potential threats. Sylvain keeps space because he doesn’t believe in love, and he sure as hell doesn’t believe in soulmates, so why bother letting anyone that close?</p>
<p>The thing about life on the road is there’s no end to it. When the only goal is to drive, you never have to think about where you’re going. When you never really planned on living this long, it’s blissfully free of expectations, none of those pesky <i>afterward</i>s and <i>and-then-what</i>s waiting for you on the horizon. </p>
<p>That’s how he likes it: the stretch of asphalt, the sun, and the wide empty spaces. Between where you’re coming from and where you’re going, there’s enough space to drown yourself, enough to forget there could have been a time when you ever knew anything else.</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>After the first day full of weird reunions and strained conversations, the following few spent waiting for his battery to get replaced are almost lackadaisical. Sylvain showed up on a Friday, so Ingrid has the weekend off at least to hang out with and entertain him. There’s criminally little to do in Galatea, but they make it work.</p>
<p>Periodically, Felix hangs out with them as well. He meets them for dinner, or pesters Sylvain into accompanying him in an early morning gym session (this only happens once, as Felix goes to the gym every day like clockwork at five thirty in the goddamn morning, and Sylvain quickly decides he would rather die than repeat the experience. Also, seeing Felix’s sweaty body that early in the day <i>does</i> in fact make Sylvain want to light himself on fire).</p>
<p>Still, despite his best efforts, he ends up with a lot of time to himself. Downtime leaves him with room to get pesky little things like <i>ideas</i>, and the one he’s been turning about in his mind recently is perhaps the worst idea of all. It sits in the back of his brain, ceaselessly nagging.</p>
<p>Ashe calls late Wednesday afternoon. The battery was shipped in that morning, and installation was quick and easy. “You’re welcome to come pick her up now,” he says, “but tomorrow’s fine too. I know it’s getting late, you should get on the road when there’s more daylight left!”</p>
<p>The idea that has been torturing Sylvain rears its ugly head again in full-force. He briefly thinks about fighting it, thinks <i>you know, fuck it</i>, and then goes one floor down to Felix’s front door.</p>
<p>Felix doesn’t even open the door all the way—just enough to halfway shove his body out of it. Through the crack in the door, Sylvain can see the glorious mess that is Felix Fraldarius’s apartment. He averts his eyes before he can think about it too long.</p>
<p>“Yes?” asks Felix. </p>
<p>“Do you want to go to the park with me?”</p>
<p>“....The park?”</p>
<p>Sylvain shrugs. “It’s a pretty day.” This isn’t true. It’s hot and a little overcast.</p>
<p>Felix raises one eyebrow. “Are you that bored?”</p>
<p>“Come on, man. I just want to spend more time with an old friend while I’ve got the chance.” He unleashes what he knows is his best weapon— two straight rows of pearly white teeth. He hopes it works. “You know, we’ve hardly hung out without Ingrid while I’ve been here.”</p>
<p>For what it was worth, that was true, and entirely on purpose on Sylvain’s part. He hadn’t been sure what to do with Felix yet, and didn’t trust himself enough to not to take one look at him and blurt out something stupid like <i>so your soulmate’s dead, huh</i> or <i>hey, remember when we were kids and I was pretty much in love with you?</i></p>
<p>But he’s been getting used to it—the concept of Felix existing in his life again. At least, he wants to.</p>
<p>Felix assesses him and hums noncommittally. “Just let me grab my phone,” he says, and then they’re off.</p>
<p>The park closest to the apartment complex has trees that are mostly dead and a small children’s playground that looks like you might get murdered on it. Sylvian takes one swing at the swingset and gestures for Felix to take the other, who rolls his eyes and sits down. They’re both too tall for it, so their feet touch the ground and they don’t move—they just sit there.</p>
<p>“My car battery’s fixed.” Sylvain absentmindedly kicks at a pebble by his feet. “Got the call today.”</p>
<p>“Will you be leaving soon, then?”</p>
<p>“Yeah. Tomorrow, probably.”</p>
<p>Felix hums again. Sylvain can’t tell if he sounds glad, or disappointed, or anything. “You know where you’ll head, this time?”</p>
<p>Sylvain glances up. Felix isn’t looking at him, he’s looking forward. There’s a patch of small yellow flowers in front of them, and a breeze picks up and casts some loose strands of his hair in an arc around his face. </p>
<p>Sylvain’s breath catches. He tightens his hold on the chains of the swing until he can feel the imprint of it dig into his palms, tempering him before he does something stupid. Now or fucking never.</p>
<p>“I’ve got an idea of where I’d like to do,” he starts, as innocently as he can manage. “It’s got some contingencies though.” </p>
<p>“Contingencies?”</p>
<p>“Yeah, like… the company I bring with me. Got an old friend in mind.”</p>
<p><i>That</i> gets Felix to look at him. He blinks, and Sylvain observes Felix’s brow in minor fascination as his face swings through a thousand different micro-expressions. He settles on some sort of mix of looking disgruntled, curious, and accusatory. Sylvain briefly wonders if Felix has extra facial muscles that normal people just don’t have.</p>
<p>“You don’t…” Felix trails off. He glances at the flowers again, and then back at Sylvain, who meets his gaze straight-on. “Are you <i>propositioning</i> me?”</p>
<p>The guffaw of laughter that comes out of Sylvain actually startles him. Felix glares at him, and Sylvain bites his lip to quiet it. He’s not all that successful. </p>
<p>“Christ, Felix, I’m asking if you want to come on a road trip. You don’t have to be a Victorian maiden about it.”</p>
<p>Felix huffs, but he hasn’t actually said no yet, so Sylvain lets his hopes stay tentatively high. “And what would ‘going with you’ actually entail?”</p>
<p>“Easy. We go north, hit the Rhodos Coast, and travel along it ‘til we reach Sreng. Circle through Sreng, head down south, we’re back at Galatea. Doesn’t even have to take long—two, maybe three weeks, tops.”</p>
<p>Felix hums. He still looks unconvinced. “There’s nothing <i>in</i> Sreng.”</p>
<p>“Exactly,” Sylvain laughs. “That’s the point. Big empty stretches of desert and towns you’ve never heard of—I’ve always wanted to see it, but it’d be boring alone.” </p>
<p>Sylvain might like life on the road, but he’s still a social person by nature; he knows his limits. He’s never attempted a route with quite this amount of jack-shit in it before.</p>
<p>“Besides,” Sylvain continues. “I know you’re not busy. It’s summer.” Perks of being a schoolteacher, Sylvian guesses. It really must be nice to have the summers off. “I don’t want to go to Sreng alone, you don’t have anything else to do, and we have years of missed life to catch each other up on. It just makes sense, right?”</p>
<p>“Two weeks is a long time to spend trapped in each other’s constant company.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, well, I remember a time when we were willing to spend a lot longer together than two weeks.” </p>
<p>This is the wrong thing to say. Sylvain feels it in the way Felix tenses and the wind stills, and he rushes to take it back. “Uh, I mean—”</p>
<p>“It’s fine,” Felix says. “It’s not like I don’t remember that too. But I don’t have <i>‘nothing else to do’</i>, and I don’t feel any need to go galavanting around with you in the desert. Find someone else.”</p>
<p>Sylvian doesn’t realize that he’s been holding his breath until it all comes out of him at once. He feels like he just got deflated.</p>
<p>“Yeah, sure,” he supplies, painfully light. “It was just an idea, anyway. And if you change your mind before tomorrow—uh, you know where to find me.”</p>
<p>It was stupid of him to hope for this from the start. But he just kept thinking about it—the concept of getting back on the road and never seeing Felix again, the way Ingrid looked when she clenched her fists in her lap and said <i>I don’t really know how to help him</i>, then the sad look in her eyes toward Sylvain that said <i>I’ve never known how to help you</i>, and he thought—maybe. Just, maybe.</p>
<p>But it was what it was. Sylvain purposely keeps most things in his life temporary, and if Felix was destined to be temporary, too—well, he’d suck it up. He always did.</p>
<p>“Enough of that,” Sylvain says, standing up. “It’s my last night in town, so let’s actually do something, yeah? I’m <i>sure</i> there’s a decent bar somewhere in this town, you guys are just holding out on me.”</p>
<p>Felix huffs a laugh and rolls his eyes, standing up too. “Yeah, keep dreaming.”</p>
<p>They don’t talk about the trip again.</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Sylvian broke his leg, once. </p>
<p>In reality, it wasn’t that bad of a break, and would heal without complication after a rather unfortunate six weeks of armpit bruising and crutch-hobbling. </p>
<p>For a kid, though, it seemed like the kind of epic war injury ancient scholars would write legends about. Especially when you were a kid like Ingrid, who spent more time reading about heroic tales than talking to human people, or a kid like Felix, who genuinely acted like every small happenstance might be the end of the world.</p>
<p>Felix had found him first. The far off cry of “Sylvain!” sounded like a warbled little whisper, like something careening toward him from the left end of a very long tunnel, and Sylvain’s fuzzy cotton-filled brain had a hard time placing it. </p>
<p>It had then been followed with a “Syl<i>vain</i>!” that sounded both much closer and more distinctly full of tears, and Sylvain thought, <i>oh, right.</i></p>
<p>He’d had innocuous intentions, at the time. Their friendly neighborhood Ultimate tournament had come to an unfortunate end after one ill-aimed throw sent the frisbee hurtling across the street and straight onto the roof of an old storage warehouse. Sylvian had taken one look at the circle of disappointed and pinched-angry faces around him, thrown his arms up, and said <i>woah, relax, I’ll get the frisbee.</i></p>
<p>So he’d climbed up to the roof of the warehouse via a fat stack of wood crates next to it, retrieved and tossed down the frisbee like any regular neighborhood hero, and then promptly lost his footing climbing back onto one of the middle crates. He’d heard more than felt it— the crunchy little impact, the clean <i>snap</i> like a twig breaking in the woods. His memories were less clear after that.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Glenn Fraldarius drove him to the hospital. He’d just gotten his license, and had been basking in the wonderous flex that was “the ability to take other people places” for a while. Felix sat in the back seat with Sylvain, quietly sniffling. He was crying, but he was mad about it. He’d been growing into that— the whole “being mad about it” thing. </p>
<p>And after Sylvain had been X-rayed, casted, and dismissed—<i>clean break, nothing serious</i>—Felix was still mad about it.</p>
<p>“You could have <i>died</i>,” Felix said, which probably wasn’t true, and also said “You’re so stupid”, which was. </p>
<p>“Don’t be such a baby, Fe,” Sylvian replied. “I’m <i>fine</i>. Even got our frisbee back. So everything worked out in the end, right?”</p>
<p>Felix did not respond to this, instead choosing to sniffle indignantly. And then, for reasons still somewhat unbeknownst to himself, Sylvain elected to continue. </p>
<p>“Besides,” he said, “everyone dies eventually.”</p>
<p>It had been weighing on his mind for a while—<i>growing up</i>, like his father or brother, and the preordained soulmate fate that was waiting for him and his friends. All of a sudden it felt necessary to make Felix understand it the way Sylvian had started to—that Sylvian would not, could not, be around to get their frisbees off the roof forever. Fate would just not allow it.</p>
<p>But Felix—well.</p>
<p>“Not you,” he’d said, like it was that simple. “Not without me.”  </p>
<p>Felix always had this way of looking at the world that was so straightforward and clear-cut it sometimes gave Sylvian a headache. That time, it just made him feel like everything around him had been titled off its axis, shifting it all a nice two inches to the left.</p>
<p><i>Promise me,</i> said Felix, back then. Sylvain didn’t know what he was promising at the time—didn’t know if he believed it, or <i>could</i> believe it, or what the hell ever. Felix had a soulmate, and it was decidedly not Sylvain. To Sylvain, this changed a lot. To Felix, apparently, it didn’t.</p>
<p>But that was just it, right? Maybe it really was that uncomplicated, that fucking easy. Sylvain and Felix were never meant to share fate, but for a while, they just <i>had</i>.</p>
<p>Sylvain felt like he’d been paying the price for it ever since.</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>It’s the middle of the night when Sylvian hears the knock at the door. It’s a loud, impatient knock, showing little reluctance to firmly demand attention at two thirty in the goddamn morning. Ingrid doesn’t wake up—she sleeps like the dead—which means Sylvain is the one who has to drag his ass off the couch and stumble to the front door. </p>
<p>He cracks it open, feeling murderous. “What.” </p>
<p>It’s Felix. His face is a little bit red, his eyes darting from Sylvain to the door post to somewhere just behind Sylvain’s head. <i>Doineedtopackanything</i>, he says, in lieu of a greeting. It comes out all on one exhale.</p>
<p>“What?”</p>
<p>“For the trip. To Sreng. With you. Do I need to pack anything.”</p>
<p>Something warm and light is stirring in Sylvain’s chest. He feels his face start to split into a grin, which he knows is going to earn him a glare from Felix, but—fuck it. It’s too much effort to hide.</p>
<p>“Not really,” Sylvain replies, trying very hard not to sound giddy. “Some spare changes of clothes, wallet, phone charger, snacks—that’s it, pretty much.”</p>
<p>“Okay.” Felix gives Sylvain a very pointed look. Sylvain knows that he won’t apologize for the late hour, or for changing his mind last minute, nor will he directly say <i>I’ve decided to come with you</i> out loud, because he’s stupid like that. It is up to Sylvain to read between the lines. </p>
<p>He’s used to it, though. He doesn’t mind.</p>
<p>“I’ll see you bright and early tomorrow, then,” Sylvain says. “Seven thirty?” </p>
<p>Felix is backing away from the door. He looks less frantic now. “Okay,” he says again. “Seven thirty.”</p>
<p>“See you then. Goodnight.”</p>
<p>“Goodnight.”</p>
<p>Felix clunks down the stairs. Sylvain shuts the door. And if he does an embarrassing little happy dance on his way back to the couch—well, no one has to know.</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>“Remind me again,” Ingrid says, slowly, “<i>what</i> is happening.”</p>
<p>“Boys’ road trip!” Sylvain winks at her. Ingrid doesn’t even react. “Spur of the moment buddy bonding. Sorry, you can’t come—strictly forbidden.”</p>
<p>They’re sitting in Ingrid’s car in the lot outside her apartment complex, waiting for Felix to stumble down the stairs with his bag. Truly miraculous how he manages to be an early riser for the gym and late for everything else.</p>
<p>They just need Ingrid to drive them to Ashe’s shop on her way to work—once there, they’ll get in Sylvain’s car, hit the road, and be out of her hair. It was simple, and Sylvain said as much to her this morning, but she got stuck on some of the details.</p>
<p>“Felix,” Ingrid repeats, beginning a sentence that she has already essentially said many times, “is going with <i>you</i>, to go do… whatever it is you do. On the road, together.”</p>
<p>“That’s it, yeah.”</p>
<p>She gives him a long look, then sighs. “Okay.” It’s the verbal equivalent of a white flag, a completely accepted defeat. She drums her fingers against the center console. “Just... be careful.”</p>
<p>“Always am.” And then, because he knows she’s still worried, he lets his voice fall into something more serious for a moment. “I don’t think it’ll be bad for him. It’s helped me, you know—driving. Getting away from all of it for a while.”</p>
<p>“I know it has. I’m more worried about <i>you</i>.” Sylvain blinks at this. He lets out a startled laugh.</p>
<p>“You underestimate me. I’m <i>great</i> at repressing things.” Ingrid gives him a very pointed look that very clearly says <i>that’s exactly what I’m worried about, you dumb motherfucker</i>, but Sylvain doesn’t acknowledge it. “And hey, you never know. Maybe it’ll help me too, let me find some sort of closure for all of this. If nothing else,” he pauses, “it’ll be fun. I’ve actually really missed him.”</p>
<p>He’s surprised by how true it is, by how easy it feels to admit it out loud. Ingrid opens her mouth to say something else, but she’s interrupted by a knock at the car window. </p>
<p>Felix has arrived, giant black hiking bag slung over one shoulder. Ingrid rolls down the window to bitch at him for being late, Felix bitches back, and everything settles into something familiar and normal.</p>
<p>It stays that way for a while, even after Ingrid has dropped them off, even after he and Felix settle into Sylvain’s car and hit the road to fucking nowhere, while the sun slowly climbs into the sky.</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>There are two reasons for travelling to Sreng along the Rhodos Coast: one, the scenery along the ocean is gorgeous and has way better vibes, and two, Sylvain selfishly wants to enjoy civilization at least once before diving headfirst into a vast wasteland of sand. Maybe a stronger man would be able to go from the sleepy, backwater town of Galatea straight into a barren desert, but hey, Sylvain works with what he’s got.</p>
<p>Halfway through the Rhodos Coast they’ll hit Derdriu, the largest sprawling port metropolis the continent has to offer. It’s a party city, a gambling city, a whatever-the-fuck-you-need-it-to-be city, and Sylvain had been there a handful of times, although his memories of those times are never very clear. </p>
<p>Regardless, he knows it’s a worthwhile destination—babe-filled beaches, your choice of trashy and/or acceptable clubs, and the perfect place to get just fucked up enough that driving through the desert actually sounds like a good time. Mainly, Sylvain is just determined to get Felix to get the stick out of his ass and have fun at least once, or die trying. </p>
<p>The first day of driving takes them just to the edge of the coast. It isn’t that far from Galatea, honestly, but they stop multiple times, any time either one of them catches sight of something cool.  </p>
<p>There’s a big empty field of sunflowers just beginning to bloom, where Sylvain jokingly takes one and places it on his own head like a hat, to which Felix makes a wonderfully constipated expression. </p>
<p>They pass through a sketchy roadside zoo, which turns out to be a short-lived experience after they almost immediately get rammed into by a giant boar and Sylvian hightails it the fuck out of there. He will <i>not</i> get scratches on his baby. </p>
<p>Once they hit the water, they stumble upon an old marooned fishing vessel, half sideways on the rocky beach. They crawl in after peeling back a waterlogged panel door and find a whole lot of nothing inside. </p>
<p>Despite this, Felix still manages to discover what must have been an old wall-decoration, a misshapen ceremonial sword that is at least eighty percent rust. Felix says <i>this is so cool</i>, to which Sylvain says <i>you are literally going to get tetanus</i>, and then he has to offer to pay Felix real life money to leave it behind.</p>
<p>They find dinner at a mom-and-pop seafood joint, where the owners—a portly elderly couple—actually come out to talk to them for a bit. When asked where they’re from and where they’re headed, Sylvain just smiles and says <i>nowhere in particular</i>, and the old man lets out a hearty chortle that sounds remarkably similar to the gulls flying overhead.</p>
<p>“Ah, to be young,” he says. They’re given dessert on the house.</p>
<p>They settle in for the night at a shitty motel a little inland, where the lights operate at half capacity and the sheets smell like cigarette smoke. Then in the morning they get up, stretch— Felix hits the motel gym and complains about it—and they hit the road again. </p>
<p>They reach Derdriu by the late afternoon. Sylvain wants a full day for beaching and going out, so they spend the rest of their arrival day aimlessly wandering the downtown area, doing a little bit of window shopping. Felix didn’t pack a swimsuit, so Sylvain makes him try on a bunch and gives him fashion critiques on each. He revels in the way Felix gets a little bit redder with each increasingly weird compliment he gives.</p>
<p>They eventually give up on shopping and go to a little vintage theater, where they pay too much for popcorn. The movie they watch is absolutely abysmal—it’s some kind of medieval fantasy slasher, full of sword fights and a vague, dragon-based religion, because that’s the bullshit that Felix likes. Sylvain doesn’t really watch the movie, though; he mostly just watches Felix.</p>
<p>Before they head into their hotel for the night—a significantly nicer one this time—they go down to one of the city’s piers and look at the moonlight cutting shapes into the water. The ocean makes quiet <i>whoosh</i> sounds against the support beams, and Sylvian unconsciously matches his breath to the flow of it.</p>
<p>He decides to test the waters. “So?” he says. “What do you think?”</p>
<p>“About what?”</p>
<p>“The city, the trip, travelling with me. Any of it.”</p>
<p>Felix hums. “S’alright.”</p>
<p>Sylvain huffs out a breathless little laugh. “Just <i>alright</i>. Goddamnit, Felix. I’ll make a believer out of you yet.”</p>
<p>Felix quirks his lips up at this, giving Sylvian a sidelong glance. The lights from the city behind him casts shadows on his face and lights up the corners of his eyes. It’s deafening—the murmur of the tourists around them, the turning of the waves, the churning in his gut. </p>
<p>“I’ll hold you to that,” Felix says. It feels like a promise.</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>They hit the beach first thing in the morning. Despite being significantly fairer skinned, Felix doesn’t want to wear sunscreen, because he says doing so is for people who are ‘weak’, with ‘no willpower’. </p>
<p>Sylvian circumvents this by reminding Felix that if he gets burnt, he’s the only one who is going to have to spend days with his crispy ass stuck to Sylvain’s leather car seats, and Felix eventually concedes. </p>
<p>Sylvain still doesn’t really trust him to put it on properly, though, so he offers to apply Felix’s sunscreen himself. They spend a few minutes in the early morning light of their hotel room with Sylvain rubbing circles into Felix’s arms, shoulders, back, pressing until all the sunscreen has fully soaked into his skin. Felix is uncharacteristically silent throughout the process. </p>
<p>They then spend enough hours laying in the sun that Sylvain thinks he might shrivel up. They get roped into a match of beach volleyball by some random guys looking for a duo to play against, which takes a competitive turn because Felix is involved, and Sylvain drags them out of the game to dunk Felix in the ocean before things get any worse.</p>
<p>By mid-afternoon Sylvain feels like the sun, salt, and smell of tanning lotion has both killed him and turned him into a new man. He slides his sunglasses up into his hair and lightly kicks Felix, who is lying face flat on his towel and legitimately looks kind of dead.</p>
<p>“I’m gonna go on a hunt for a drink. You want anything?”</p>
<p>Felix makes some kind of grumbly noise into the towel.</p>
<p>He laughs. “I’ll get you a piña colada, then. They’re good here.”</p>
<p>There’s a pleased, more approving sounding grumble in response.</p>
<p>It doesn’t take long to find a drink hut—they line the beaches, and it’s easy to tell the good ones from the bad based on the crowds around them. Sylvain sees a decent looking mini-bar not that far from where their towels are, and settles in line to wait.</p>
<p>Some odd minutes later, he’s startled by a vaguely familiar voice.</p>
<p>“Is that… <i>Sylvain Gautier</i>? No way, that is you, isn’t it?”</p>
<p>He turns and sees—a girl. She’s sunkissed and clearly in the middle of a great beach day herself, and he definitely remembers her, although he’s not confident enough on her name to risk saying it out loud. He puts his best charming smile on.</p>
<p>“Long time no see,” he grins. “What are you doing here?”</p>
<p>“Same thing as you, I’d imagine.” She gestures to the beach, the bar, the almost empty cup in her hand. She takes another sip of it. “You still on the road?”</p>
<p>“Yeah.” He suddenly remembers something—more details about where he knows her from. He hopes the belated flash of recognition in his eyes isn’t too obvious. “What about you?”</p>
<p>She grins. “I’m camping in Derdriu for pretty much the whole summer. Too much fun, you know? But I’ll probably go back come fall.”</p>
<p>She’s a hitchhiker. Or at least, she was. They’d met not long after Sylvain had started this whole thing, when he picked her up on the road and gave her a ride the rest of the way to Enbarr. They’d talked a lot—shared stories of their respective experiences travelling, messed around, spent a couple of nights together, the works. </p>
<p>It was all in good fun, even though she kind of got attached. Asked more than once for Sylvian to take her with him when he hit the road again, fully convinced they could have a grand adventure together, and Sylvain didn’t want to. Eventually, he sliced it clean off with the wondrous excuse of <i>I didn’t tell you, but I’ve actually got a soulmate, so…</i></p>
<p>She took it like a champ, honestly. A free spirit through and through. Despite everything, they had ended on amicable terms. </p>
<p>He moves to make more small talk, but is caught off guard by a familiar shape in peripheral vision, and something akin to dread makes a little ball in his stomach.</p>
<p>“Sylvain, what the hell is taking so long? You’ve been gone forever—” Felix abruptly stops walking toward them, eyes darting between him and the girl standing next to him, and his face shutters shut. </p>
<p>“Just waiting in line,” Sylvain says, as light as possible. “Relax.”</p>
<p>The girl gives a curious glance between the two of them as well. “A friend of yours?” she guesses.</p>
<p>“We’re travelling together,” Felix bites out before Sylvain can respond, causing the girl’s mouth to fall open in a little <i>‘o’</i>. Something like understanding dawns on her face, and the dread in Sylvain’s stomach swells. </p>
<p>She smiles at him. “Travelling together, hm? I thought that was reserved for your soulmate,” she teases. “So, you’ve found him?”</p>
<p>It feels like ice has been injected into Sylvain’s veins. Felix stiffens, and if Sylvain were any less of an actor, he’s sure he would have never been able to pull off the casual cadence of his response.</p>
<p>“Nah, it’s not like that.” Every muscle on his face feels strained. “We’re just on a trip.”</p>
<p>A new wave of understanding passes her face, followed by sheepishness. “Ah, that’s awkward, sorry,” she laughs. She turns to Felix and seems to assess him, and Sylvian knows exactly what she’s thinking.</p>
<p>She thinks they’re the same, her and Felix. That he’s just Sylvain’s newest week-long fling as he travels from one place to the other. She has no reason not to think that, of course, but Sylvain is dizzy with some deep-cut desire to correct her, to say <i>no, look, I didn’t dislike you, but Felix is—</i></p>
<p>Felix is—what, exactly? God, Sylvain needs a fucking drink.</p>
<p>“He’s a tough nut to crack, huh?” she decides to say, to Felix, like they’re in on some inside joke. “But hey, if you’re travelling together, you made it farther than me!” She laughs again and gives him a playful punch on the shoulder. </p>
<p>Felix makes a face like he’s swallowed something sour. Sylvain wants to pass out.</p>
<p>Right then, she seems to hear something, and they all turn to see a group of people far down on the sand frantically trying to wave at her. She glances at the bar and at her still-almost-empty cup, and pouts.</p>
<p>“Think my dumbass friends are trying to go somewhere else,” she says, and sighs. “Ah, well. It was good to see you again, Sylvain.” She winks at Felix. “And good luck to you, too.”</p>
<p>She scurries away, and the silence in the aftermath of the encounter is thick enough to cut with a knife.</p>
<p>“...Are you mad?” Sylvain asks, which is a stupid question, because one look at the tightness of Felix’s face could tell anyone that he is. Sylvain’s just not sure about which part—having to acknowledge Sylvain’s long and cavalier relationship with casual sex, which Felix has never been fond of, the strong implication that <i>Felix</i> was somehow an object in said sexcapades, or—something else.</p>
<p>“Is it just going to be like this?” Felix won’t look at him, but the accusatory tone is sharp enough alone. “Will we just have to encounter your previous <i>conquests</i> every place we go?”</p>
<p>Sylcain ignores his word choice. “Every place?” he jokes, weakly. “Don’t flatter me. I’m not <i>that</i> prolific.”</p>
<p>“Could’ve fooled me.”</p>
<p>Sylvain runs one hand through his hair. He bumps into the sunglasses he left there and almost knocks them clean off his head, leading to a rather embarrassing fumbling around. He’s been knocked off-kilter more than he realized, apparently. </p>
<p>“Look,” he starts, trying to salvage this as best he can, “I know you and Ingrid have never really approved of all the shit that I run around and do. But I can’t change the past—I can’t take any of that shit back.”</p>
<p>He shifts so that he’s more in Felix’s field of vision, hoping it will convince Felix to look at him. He wants him to believe this.</p>
<p>“But what I <i>can</i> do,” he continues, “is control what I do now. You know I always intended this trip to be about no one but us, Felix. I won’t get distracted.”</p>
<p>Felix exhales all his air and finally turns to look at him. He makes a face at Sylvain’s askew sunglasses, and in one fluid motion grabs them and slides them back down onto the bridge of his nose. Sylvain blinks.</p>
<p>“I know,” Felix says. “You’re not shitty when it counts.”</p>
<p>When the relief floods through him, Sylvain is actually kind of grateful for the shades masking his expression. He gives a small smile and glances back toward the bar—there’s only one person in front of them in line, by now. </p>
<p>“You still up for that drink?” </p>
<p>Felix snorts. He rolls his shoulders and Sylvain watches them loosen up a little bit. </p>
<p>“Sure,” he says, “but I’m ordering something a <i>fuck</i> of a lot stronger than a piña colada.”</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Sylvain doesn’t remember how old he was the first time. It was at some point in high school, at a shitty rich-kid house party held in someone’s aunt’s basement while she was out of town. Sylvain always went to these things, mostly to get fucked up, and partially to make sure his younger friends <i>didn’t</i> go to these things, ‘cause God knew they could do better than this crowd. </p>
<p>He was out in the back, on the pool deck, although he didn’t remember all that well how he got there. Probably realized how drunk he was and made some last-ditch attempt at fresh air. </p>
<p>He was also talking to a girl, but he didn’t really remember how she got there, either. He vaguely remembered thinking he’d seen her around somewhere, probably at school. She was pretty. </p>
<p>She leaned in toward him, wafting a little mix of the smell of perfume and vodka in his direction. She had one hand running along the edges of the collar of his shirt, idle, easy. Her nails felt sharp when they brushed against the sensitive skin of his neck.</p>
<p>“I heard a rumor,” she started, and she smiled, and her fingers trailed his collarbone, “that you have a soulmate.”</p>
<p>“Yeah.” His throat felt like glue. “I do.”</p>
<p>She blinked—maybe not expecting that answer, the honesty of it, what with the way the two of them had been flirting all night. Then she threw her head back and laughed. </p>
<p>“No fucking way,” she tittered, drunk and breathless. “Are you for real?”</p>
<p>Sylvain winked. “Would I lie to you?” he said. He tried to remember her name. </p>
<p>She ran a thumb along the collar of his shirt again. She hummed, she gave him a look, one that he thought he ought to know the meaning of. He didn’t.</p>
<p>Then she leaned in again. “You know,” she whispered, right into his skin, something teasing in her tone, “I’ve always heard that it’s different, being with someone with a soulmate.” </p>
<p>He scrambled for a response, struggling to straighten out where he was and where he wasn’t. His drunken brain felt like a toddler trying to cram blocks into the wrong-shaped hole, trying to put together pieces to a code it couldn’t understand.</p>
<p><i>She wants something from me</i>, he thought, and then he thought, <i>oh.</i></p>
<p>There was some sort of draw to it, he supposed. It certainly got him a lot of matches on dating apps and started a lot of conversations at bars. Sometimes he wondered if it was like a perverse fascination—the selfish glee that comes with coveting something you never should have owned. </p>
<p>Either way, people tended to perk up when Sylvain said he had a soulmate, and if he ever positively responded to their flirtations after they knew the fact, it would just egg them on more.</p>
<p>And despite how desperately every person and soulmate traditionalist in his life wanted to know, he really didn’t have an answer for why he responded to them. At one time, maybe he’d liked the attention. Mostly, it just felt like the most effective middle finger he could give—being destined to share his life with one person, and protesting by spending his meantime with as many people as fucking possible.</p>
<p>Flirting was a skill, and Sylvain was damn good at it. On the road, it earned him company, local insider information, and places to stay for free. And over time, the little pieces of dignity that he had to give away to accomplish it—he found he cared about them less and less.</p>
<p>Sometimes, even, the quiet bitter part of him that he didn’t like to dwell on wondered if it could successfully alienate his own soulmate from him. If they’d finally meet him and be disappointed that he was so used and washed-out, not the pure love they were hoping for. It would be glorious divine irony, he thought, managing to ruin his own blessings for himself. A self-fulfilling prophecy, spirialing ever outward. </p>
<p><i>Don’t you ever think of being better</i>, Ingrid had asked him once, after he wound up laying low at her place for the umpteenth time. He’d slept with two separate people who were apparently both friends, they’d met up and talked about it, and then they’d decided to duo-hunt him for sport.</p>
<p>He didn’t blame her for being frustrated. Ingrid had long since had to deal with the brunt of his misdemeanors—he’d always fled to Ingrid’s, ever since he was a kid. Sometimes it was to avoid girls like she thought, and sometimes to avoid his brother, though he’d never mention when the reason was the latter. </p>
<p>She hadn’t defined what <i>better</i> meant. More considerate of other people’s feelings, less self-destructive, less fundamentally shitty—maybe a fun alphabet soup of all three. But his answering grin would have been the same anyway.</p>
<p><i>What for?</i> he’d replied. </p>
<p>He’d meant it, then. Probably still did. But sometimes, in all honesty, he didn’t know how he felt about it—the word <i>better</i>, and what it looked like, and if he could ever get there.</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Despite dissipating the weird air between them at the beach, Felix and Sylvain never really manage to get rid of the tension. In Sylvain’s experience, there’s one good surefire way to get rid of tension—which is, of course, to get drunk and dance.</p>
<p>He knows Felix has never really been the ‘going out’ type, so he keeps that in mind when choosing a place. He’s been around the block in Derdriu enough times that he knows which venues have atmospheres that Felix can handle. </p>
<p>The place he ends up choosing is a nice bar named <i>The Mittelfrank</i>, but affectionately called Manuela's by all the locals. Sylvain has met her, the owner—a gold-glittering cougar of a woman who could charm her way out of a prison sentence, if she had to. She was obviously way too old for Sylvain, but it never stopped the two of them from firing back and forth, and Sylvain always found he enjoyed the banter.</p>
<p>He also enjoyed the company of the main bartender, whose wit and flirtations were made all the better by the fact that she genuinely acted as if she might despise him. (She didn’t, though! Probably!)</p>
<p>When they walk in, he finds he’s in luck; she’s working tonight. Sylvain slides one arm across Felix’s back and glides them over to two open seats at the bar, waiting for Dorothea to notice him. It doesn’t take long.</p>
<p>“Back in town, Sylvain?” she asks, polishing a bourbon glass. “Shame. I was hoping I wouldn’t have to see your ugly mug ever again.”</p>
<p>“You know I would never deprive you of that luxury.” Sylvain winks. Dorothea gives him an ice cold look, but the corners of her lips quirk upward, and then she turns her attention to Felix. </p>
<p>He cuts her off before she can say anything. “Whatever warning you’re about to give me about Sylvain, save it. I definitely already know.”</p>
<p>Dorothea startles, then she laughs. “Wow, a man of confidence and commitment, huh? I like that—even if it <i>is</i> a commitment to stupidity.”</p>
<p>Someone down the bar calls for her attention, and she glances and nods at them before briefly turning back to Sylvian and Felix. “Give me a sec, and I’ll make you both something good. Yours is on the house,” she says to Felix, and then gives Sylvain’s hand a succinct little <i>pat-pat</i>— “and I’m charging <i>you</i> extra.”</p>
<p>“Is that, like, legal?”</p>
<p>“I call it the Asshole Tax. Manuela loves it.”</p>
<p>Despite being charged more, the drink Dorothea makes him is admittedly very good, and he can tell from Felix’s warm eyes and pinched expression that he’s pleased with his drink too. Leave it to Dorothea to instantly ascertain Felix’s tastes—he’s always had a weird feeling that the two of them would get along. </p>
<p>Conversation flows easy, and the drinks do too. Sometimes Felix and Dorothea start talking about something and Sylvain takes the back-burner, content to just revel in the atmosphere. Sometimes Dorothea disappears to go tend to another customer, and Felix and Sylvain pick up right where they left off. It’s all smooth and blissfully uncomplicated. </p>
<p>But when Sylvain stands up to take a leak and the whole world starts rocking violently around, he realizes whatever drinks Dorothea has been making them are definitely stronger than he was giving them credit for. </p>
<p>He wobbles about, says <i>yo, Felix, let’s get up and drink some water, I don’t want a hangover tomorrow</i>, to which Felix, who is drunk, says <i>I’m not even drunk and also you’re stupid</i>, and proceeds to down the rest of his glass in one go. Sylvain just groans and hobbles to the bathroom so he can pretend that didn’t happen.</p>
<p>Felix apparently took some of his words to heart, though, because when he comes back, Felix is standing up. “Dorothea told me we should go dance,” he informs him, and Sylvian raises one eyebrow.  </p>
<p>“Did she now?” He casts a half-glare at Dorothea, who winks coyly at him. Goddamnit. </p>
<p>Together, they shuffle-step over to the wood-panelled corner where most drunk patrons at The Mittelfrank dance and stumble around if they so feel like it. It’s a ways away from the bar and most of the tables, the corner where the lighting is the most dim and the music is loudest. </p>
<p>Felix is doing some kind of horrible swinging movement with all of his limbs. Sylvain has no idea what is happening.</p>
<p>“What the hell are you <i>doing</i>.”</p>
<p>“I’m <i>dancing</i>, obviously.” Felix makes this statement with indignant nonchalance, like he can’t believe that Sylvain would have the audacity to ask that, but he also doesn’t care. He then proceeds to walk straight into Sylvain and bury his head in the crook of his neck and shoulder.</p>
<p>Sylvain can feel every pane of Felix’s body pressed into his, hyper aware of each point they have contact. His breath is horribly warm on Sylvain’s neck, and his hands find their way to wrap loosely around Sylvain’s torso. Reflexively, Sylvain’s hands find their way around Felix as well.</p>
<p>So now they’re—hugging? They’re in some sort of embrace, in the middle of a makeshift dance area for a bar that doesn’t even have that many dancing patrons, swaying back and forth together with no tempo at all.</p>
<p>Drunk Felix makes some sort of content sound into Sylvain’s neck, and Sylvain can’t do this, he really can’t. He’ll die.</p>
<p>“Hey, buddy,” he murmurs, desperately trying to peel Felix off of him, “hey, you’re really drunk—” Felix grapples with the fabric of Sylvain’s shirt— “Felix, <i>please</i> let go.”</p>
<p>This, thankfully, is enough to startle Felix into giving up on—whatever it is that he’s been trying to accomplish. He takes a few steps back and blinks at Sylvain. </p>
<p>“I’m not even drunk,” he mumbles, and Sylvain says, “Uh, you sure as fuck are,” with much more fondness than he would like. He manages to get them two water bottles for the road on the way out from Dorothea, who does look a bit sheepish when she sees the state of Felix.</p>
<p>“Sorry, didn’t think he’d be that much of a lightweight,” she says, and Sylvain wants to reply with something along the lines of <i>look at his tiny body and repressed loser disposition, obviously he’s a lightweight</i>, but he holds his tongue. Instead, he just thanks her for the company and conversation and closes their tab.</p>
<p>Felix passes out almost immediately in the cab ride back to the hotel. Sylvian debates waking him up, but decides to let him rest, and ends up slinging him on his back and piggy-backing him up to their room. He doesn't bother changing Felix’s clothes or anything, just tosses him onto one of the hotel beds, calls it a mission success, and goes to get ready for bed himself.</p>
<p>When he washes his face, for a brief moment, he lets his head rest in his hands with a groan. He tries to pretend like he can’t still feel each individual place where Felix’s body had been pressed into his, burning, lingering.</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>They get a delayed start the next day; Felix has a hangover from hell and they sleep straight through their checkout time. Sylvain tries to pay the late fee discreetly, so Felix doesn’t feel guilty while also feeling like shit.</p>
<p>They had a good two days in Derdriu, but as it disappears in the rearview mirror behind them, Sylvain has to admit he’s not all that sorry to see it go. He was right about one thing, at least—all the civilization and dealing with people and emotions definitely made him long for an empty desert. </p>
<p>The rest of that day is characterized by very little. Felix still has a headache and can’t really keep shit down, so he sleeps most of the drive. They didn’t even get on the road until the late afternoon, so Sylvain has nothing but the setting sun and slowly withering coast to keep him company, the visible slivers of the ocean becoming more and more infrequent the closer they get to Sreng. </p>
<p>He finds he doesn’t mind. It’s easier, when there’s silence and not the constant company of Felix, to properly think about how he feels about Felix. Sylvain wonders when he became this embarrassing. </p>
<p>The days get longer, and the things to see and places to stop slowly begin to die out. They still stop, of course—once, they make a detour to a ranch in the middle of nowhere, where they pet cows and pay the man who owns it to let them ride his horses. They try to race, but Sylvain wins by a landslide because horses apparently hate Felix, which Sylvain finds endlessly hilarious. </p>
<p>“Horses are good judges of character and can sense your horrible vibes,” says Sylvain, which prompts Felix punching him in the arm, and the horse that Felix has desperately been trying to impress screams at him for doing so. Sylvain’s fit of laughter nearly takes him to the ground.</p>
<p>For the most part, though, all they can do is drive. The vegetation becomes more sparse, the landscape changes to be more cracked and colorless, and the horizon starts to stretch endlessly in all directions. </p>
<p>Driving time means they have a lot of space to fill the car with. They alternate between music, podcasts, and talking, although podcasts cause some contention. </p>
<p>Felix literally only listens to podcasts about like, strength-building techniques and macromolecules. Sylvain tries to play a recording of a musical once and Felix just instantly falls asleep. At one point, Sylvain suggests they listen to a Dungeons and Dragons-based podcast, and Felix looks at him like he has literally never seen him before.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, talking brings some kind of contention too. It’s not like they don’t talk—they do talk, and they do a lot of it. There’s quite literally nothing else to do. But the shit they talk about is largely meaningless—crazy celebrity stories, what that one kid from high school is up to now, this band is good, did you know I saw them live?</p>
<p>Occasionally they skirt into reminiscing, laughing about the stupid shit they did as kids. The problem is that most of those stories are populated with people who are long gone now, and openly acknowledging them feels like edging dangerously close to a set of floodgates, like remembering one death will automatically beget another. </p>
<p>There are conversation topics neither of them have so far been willing to touch with a ten foot pole, and it's obvious. As the sky stretches out and the Sreng sands begin to wrap around them, Sylvain wonders how long they can keep it up.</p>
<p>Not long, apparently.</p>
<p>“There’s something that’s been bothering me,” is what Felix says, unprompted. They had previously been listening to a pretty mellow album that Sylvain suggested, but it was clear that somewhere in the listening, Felix had gotten lost in his thoughts. He’d been staring out the car window for an indeterminate amount of time, and he turns to look at Sylvian now.</p>
<p>“Shoot.”</p>
<p>“You’re not short on cash.”</p>
<p><i>That</i> hadn’t been what Sylvian was expecting. He snorts. “What, are you calling me a rich bitch, Felix?”</p>
<p>“You’ve paid for nearly half the meals we’ve gotten together. You paid for our tab and covered the late fee in Derdriu. And you’ve been travelling around like this for God knows how long—which has definitely included a substantial number of hotel bills.”</p>
<p>Sylvain bites his lip. “Astute observation, I guess. What’s your point?”</p>
<p>“It’s just—” Felix looks frustrated. “It’s not like you’re <i>working</i>. You’ve been on the road and nothing else. And I doubt that old man of yours would ever give you this much PTO.”</p>
<p>Sylvain blanches. He has two choices here: he can tell the truth, the entire truth, or he can tell just enough of it to slip by. Sheer force of habit makes him fall back on the latter.</p>
<p>“My mother is in charge of the company now, actually,” he drops casually, and Felix looks at him in shock.</p>
<p>“Your <i>mother</i>?” Sylvain’s mother has never been much of anything.</p>
<p>“Hey, you’d be surprised. She’s got better innate business sense than most people know—I mean, she was my dad’s soulmate, the old fuckin’ tycoon.”</p>
<p>Felix gives Sylvain a quiet, searching look. Maybe he caught onto the <i>‘was’</i>. Maybe he’s just waiting for Sylvain to continue. But Sylvain—he doesn’t know where to start.</p>
<p>There’s so much Felix doesn’t know. It isn’t until Felix starts to respond that he realizes he voiced this thought out loud.</p>
<p>“I lost track of you, after you graduated,” Felix murmurs. “We were in totally different places, and college was a shitshow enough already. I was only halfway through it. I didn’t have the energy for anything else.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, well—it’s not all your fault. It was mine too. After I got out of business school, I lost track of everyone.” Sylvain laughs bitterly. “It wasn’t great for me—graduating. I wasn’t too keen on working for my dad’s company. Shit was pretty miserable there for a while.”</p>
<p>“So what changed? How did you go from that to—” Felix gestures to the car, the road, the everything—“this?”</p>
<p>“That’s a lot of ground to cover.”</p>
<p>“We’ve got time.”</p>
<p>This is true—they have nothing but a great big flatass desert, an open road, and boundless time. Sylvain had wanted for them to bond on this trip. He wanted Felix to be vulnerable, to process things, to see the world from a perspective he hadn’t been able to find in his self-isolation, and wouldn’t be able to find in Galatea. </p>
<p>Here’s the problem: Sylvain is scared.</p>
<p>He tightens his grip on the steering wheel, feels the familiar purr of the engine beneath him and tries to let it ground his jackrabbit heart. Give a little, get a little, right? He can’t expect Felix to open up and offer nothing in return. Sylvain has been trying to be less selfish; he’s been trying to be better.</p>
<p>And Felix is right—they’ve got time.</p>
<p>“Buckle in and settle down, then,” Sylvain says. “You want a story? I’ll give you one.”</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>The great esteemed Mr. Gautier died on a Thursday. Heart failure. A sad but fitting end for someone who put years and years of tireless work into his security business—an unexpected end for a man who spent his whole life carefully crafting his visage to appear untouchable.</p>
<p>The heart attack came from a lifetime of paranoia and keeping clenched iron fists on anyone and anything he considered “his”. Sylvain knew that better than most. </p>
<p>Still, facts like those had to be bleached out of the narrative, and in the days following his unexpected passing, that was Sylvain’s job—damage control. To recreate the story of a man with all his edges cut clean, as immaculate in death as he was in life. </p>
<p>Sylvian wrote the eulogy twice: the first time delineating the truth, and the second time telling the version that was easier to swallow.</p>
<p>“My father was a strong man,” Sylvain started. “An immovable mountain of a man, really. My whole life, I don’t think I knew anyone tougher or more powerful than him.” </p>
<p>Standing up there on the podium, it was one of the last sentences he’d said that day that he believed. </p>
<p>Sylvain had eulogized Miklan, too. Planned nearly the whole funeral, since his parents couldn’t be bothered. They didn’t want to be responsible for holding anything at all, were content to let the body stay in the prison it had died in and have the government handle the disposal, but Sylvain could never shake the feeling like he owed him something.  Like he owed him this, at least.</p>
<p>Eulogizing Miklan was hard. For the longest time, the piece of paper Sylvian wrote it on had just one sentence— <i>Miklan was my brother.</i> Eulogizing his father was much easier. He’d lived a whole lifetime of hearing praises about his father, carefully deciding which ones he could allow himself to believe. </p>
<p>In the end, Miklan’s funeral was a small proceeding. Some old teachers, estranged high school friends, a couple people that were probably mostly there for Sylvain. The eulogy was short and Sylvain’s hands shook as he read it. <i>Miklan deserved better than what he got,</i> he’d settled on. <i>Today, we mourn for that loss. </i></p>
<p>In comparison, his father’s funeral was an <i>event</i>. The room was packed with friends and businessmen alike—old flames, war buddies, corporate go-getters hoping to schmooze up to the new young CEO of his company. The cathedral was decorated from ceiling to floor. Sylvain’s eulogy was accompanied with a slideshow of flattering pictures, charming in its delivery and heartfeltness. His hands did not shake.</p>
<p>But he’d known, even before it began, that his father’s funeral would not be the worst part. It would be what came after. </p>
<p>He’d stayed in Gautier, his parents’ hometown and where the proceedings had been held, for a while. He helped his mother clean through his father’s old stuff. She wanted to sell the old family house and move somewhere smaller, somewhere that didn’t carry so much weight. Sylvain helped her search for a nice, open apartment in Fhirdiad, where she’d have more freedom. He met with teams of lawyers to discuss the hellscape that was the will and the future leadership of the company. </p>
<p>And then, he made a decision.</p>
<p>The day he sat his mother down to talk, it was snowing. He remembered this because he’d opened the window beforehand, hoping the cold air would help him keep his nerves up. Throughout the conversation, his mother kept glancing as it let little flurries of ice in, as if debating if she should get up and close it.</p>
<p>He’d tried to plan this out. He had pretty good logic and reasoning skills, and he wanted to preemptively anticipate her counterarguments so that he’d have a response for all of them. He’d meticulously thought out how to start. In the end, though, sitting there with icy air blowing in through the window, every plan he’d had short-circuited. </p>
<p>What he’d ended up saying was: <i>Mom, I can’t do this.</i></p>
<p>It wasn’t the prettiest conversation. Sylvain’s father had never let his mother do anything. She didn’t know a thing about the company or its finances, and was unconvinced she’d be capable of not running it into the ground. Sylvain didn’t think she was stupid, no matter what his father said.</p>
<p>He’d tried to tell her as much, but then she said <i>what do you even know about me</i>, and they’d had to sit in the room with it—the acknowledgement that their parent-child relationship had never been anything closer than an acquaintance. Sylvain had wondered if it would suffocate them both.</p>
<p>But they reached an agreement, somehow. Sylvain still had a large inheritance. He’d still keep a significant portion of the company stocks. The senior leadership in the company board were all people Sylvain trusted to guide his mother well. He’d inherit the company, again, one day, when his mother was gone.</p>
<p>It took weeks to finalize everything. He went to company meeting after company meeting. He helped his mother pack her things and move to Fhridiad. He wrote contracts and signed agreements and re-drafted his mother’s will. </p>
<p>And then, it was over.</p>
<p>The day Sylvain officially gave up ownership over his father’s company was a Friday. It had snowed. Sylvain sat in the parking lot of the main office building and felt something be ripped out of him, raw and blistering. It was—a laugh, maybe. It was a sound.</p>
<p>His father was well and truly dead. His brother had been for years. The company was out of his hands, and there was nothing tying him to any of them anymore. He laughed until it hurt, until it felt like bleeding, curled in up on himself in the driver’s seat. He laughed until he couldn’t identify it as laughter anymore.</p>
<p>Funny, how when you live your whole life with a weight like that, you miss it when it’s gone.</p>
<p>By the time he was done, the snow had coated his car in a blanket. He’d had to get out and slough it off the windshield. It wasn’t great visibility conditions, and he knew he should drive straight home, back to his apartment a couple of city blocks over, and think about what he was going to do next.</p>
<p>He got on the road. He drove close enough to home to see it, fluorescent in the street lamps and snow glow of another miserable winter. He laughed again. His hands shook.</p>
<p>He drove straight past it and then kept driving. </p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Somewhere in between a pointy-looking rock formation and a sparse pattern of desert grasses, they get lost.</p>
<p>Sylvain had heard of ghost towns in this area—old mining settlements flash-built and just as quickly abandoned. All rumors, mostly, but it seemed like an adventure worth pursuing: prying their way into old empty buildings, searching for cool souvenirs, acting like they were the only two in the world. </p>
<p>Up until now, they’d mostly been following the highway. In search of ghosts, they take a random unpaved sidestreet, following its winding course into the blistering summer sun. This is their first mistake. </p>
<p>They do find some cool things—a weirdly-shaped outcropping of limestone that they get out and climb on, an oasis-like pond with water that nearly glows green, a couple of cacti in full bloom. Mostly, they find that sand off the beaten path is a bitch, and it <i>will</i> find its way into crevices you didn’t think it could reach.</p>
<p>What they <i>don’t</i> find is a single other human soul. Forget abandoned buildings—they don’t even find <i>occupied</i> buildings, the landscape totally devoid of so much as marginal signs of civilization. At first, it’s kind of funny, and then around lunchtime when they realize there will be nowhere to stop to get food, it becomes much-less-funny pretty fast. </p>
<p>They quickly decide they need to get back to the highway, where they at least know there will be reliable truck-stops and shitty motels, but every direction they turn has packed orange dirt trails that all look the same. They try backtracking, but find it harder and harder to identify where they’ve been and where they haven’t. By dusk, it’s not funny at all.</p>
<p>Despite having different providers, their cell service is shit—God only knows where the closest tower is. Sylvain assigns Felix to phone duty, laying there with both face-up on his lap, constantly watching to see if they ever manage to pick up a single bar of service. Even getting the GPS working for just a second would be useful for figuring out what the hell to do next.</p>
<p>Dinner is beef jerky and a couple of bags of chips that Sylvain had in the back. Felix brought a couple of protein bars too, which both taste like and have the consistency of dirt, but at least they’re filling. </p>
<p>When it gets dark, it’s <i>dark</i>. There’s obviously not a single streetlamp or anything of the sort, and the dirt trails they’ve been following are bumpy and full of rocks. Sylvain accidentally misjudges the curve of the trail and goes off-roading just one too many times, causing Felix to snap, “Are you doing this on purpose?”, to which Sylvain snarls, “Obviously I’m not, asshole”, and they both wish they could be much, much, farther than two feet apart from each other. </p>
<p>Driving around aimlessly in the pitch-black like this is going to run them out of gas. With a stiff jerk, Sylvain flings the car off the road and into a sandy little clearing, before partially rolling the windows down and killing the ignition. </p>
<p>“What are you doing.”</p>
<p>“We’re not going to get anywhere tonight—I’m tired, I can’t see shit, and we’re both frustrated. We’re sleeping here. We’ll reassess in the morning.”</p>
<p>Felix makes some kind of face. “Sleeping in the car?”</p>
<p>“I’ve done it before, it’s not that bad. I know doing it in a desert in the summer obviously isn’t ideal, but—” Sylvain gives a helpless shrug— “I’m out of ideas.” His voice comes out sounding much more defeated than he intended it to.</p>
<p>Felix sighs but still looks obstinately forward. “Right,” he mutters. He picks at a thread on his pants. When he speaks again, his voice is much lower. “Sorry. For this.”</p>
<p>“Don’t be. Not your fault.” They were both idiots for driving carelessly around earlier and not keeping track of where they were going.</p>
<p>Sylvain lets his head fall back against the seat, and something outside the window catches his eye. He inadvertently smiles a bit. There was one major advantage to all this darkness, he supposes.</p>
<p>He gives Felix a nudge. “C’mon, let’s get out, stretch our legs. I wanna show you something.”</p>
<p>Felix gives him a questioning look but obediently unbuckles and clambers out of the car. Once outside, Sylvain does a few light bounces on his toes, makes sure he feels blood flowing again, and then hoists himself up onto the hood. </p>
<p>From there he digs one foot into the junction of the hood and the windshield, rocks back to get some momentum, and pushes himself up onto the roof. The final bit he has to crawl is not at all graceful.</p>
<p>Felix stands on the ground, arms crossed, and raises one eyebrow.</p>
<p>“You gonna leave me up here all by my lonesome?” Sylvain teases, reaching down to offer him a hand. Felix shakes his head in disbelief and defeat, stepping up onto the side of the car and taking Sylvain’s hand so he can be yanked up to the roof as well.</p>
<p>The car is gross; they’ve been driving around in desert dirt all day. Sylvin is sure being up here is going to leave a fine layer of it all over their clothes. He elects to not care.</p>
<p>“Lay down.” He pats the area of the roof beside him. When Felix gives him a look, he adds, “Come <i>onnnnn</i>.”</p>
<p>There’s barely enough room for them up there, and it takes some awkward fumbling around, but they manage to get situated laying down next to each other. “Look,” Sylvain breathes out, barely above a whisper, the moment somehow fragile. He points up.</p>
<p>Above them, every star in the sky is visible. Alone in the desert, not another light for miles, the view up on high glows and rolls—deep purples and reds, pinpricks of light glittering at them, twinkling and uncaring. Sylvian feels more than hears Felix’s breath catch.</p>
<p>The sound that comes out of Felix is something akin to <i>oh</i>.</p>
<p>This is the most vulnerable Sylvian has felt since he caught Felix up on his life, since he dared to share his father’s death with anyone. It’s a different kind of vulnerability—before, it was personal, a little piece of him he couldn't bear to let others see, at least not until he knew what to do with it himself. </p>
<p>But this? It’s blissfully impersonal. It just makes him feel small. </p>
<p>Unthinkingly, his hand seeks Felix’s. He nudges against it, but they don’t grasp together, not yet. They just rest next to each other for a moment. Slowly, so slowly Sylvain can’t be sure it’s really happening, their pinky fingers intertwine.</p>
<p>They lay there like that, on the dusty car roof with one finger interlocked, being swallowed by the stars. When Sylvain finally makes them get down, it’s because he can feel himself falling asleep, and no matter how abandoned this area looks, he figures sleeping <i>in</i> the car is probably safer than sleeping outside of it.</p>
<p>They try to make the car as comfortable at they can: they put the sun shades up so they’ll melt as little as possible in the morning, move shit around and lay the back seats down so they'll actually have space to lay down, and attempt to put down spare clothes and whatever else they can find to make the surface less bruising to sleep on.</p>
<p>When they’ve finished, they pile in and shut their eyes and give sleeping a good old college try. It’s a tight squeeze—they are two fully grown men, after all, and despite Sylvian having a nice car, this wasn’t exactly its intended usage. They’re pressed warm together, back to back, and every time Felix breathes, Sylvain can feel it.</p>
<p>It takes Sylvain a long time to fall asleep that night. When he finally does, it’s to the cadence of Felix’s breath: in, out, in, and out.</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Sylvain had kissed Felix, once. </p>
<p>It was at some point in late high school. They were on the decaying wood of a misfortunate stranger’s dock, jutting out into the Fhirdiad bay. Felix had gotten into a fight with his father and stormed out in an impressive display of pointed malice, parading aimlessly until he’d hit water and had to stop. Sylvain followed him, as always, because he had a death wish.</p>
<p>Those had been darker days, the kind where Sylvain threw parts of himself around just to see if anyone would try to pick up the pieces. Ingrid usually did. He’d like to believe that at times, Felix had wanted to. </p>
<p>But Felix didn’t talk much back then, and when he did, the words fell out of his mouth with such barbed edges everyone wished he’d kept it shut. </p>
<p>That night was no different. It was dark, and the wood creaking menacingly beneath their feet was louder than anything he could have tried to say. Felix stood next to him, rigid, closed, so much worse at hiding his grief than he thought he was. </p>
<p>Miklan had just been disinherited the week before. No soulmate, no future—and a twisted part in Sylvain’s stomach wished that for him, it could also be that easy. Wondered if he fucked his own life up bad enough, he could get out of the contractual obligations that came with being a person too.</p>
<p>Self-destruction and morbid curiosity. That was it, probably—why he’d grabbed Felix’s shoulders, light and easy, why he’d pressed their lips together.</p>
<p>It had been a dick move, of course. Felix had just gotten out of an argument; he was angry  already. It was no surprise, then, when he froze and immediately shoved Sylvain off—the “kiss”, if it could be called that, only lasted a manner of seconds.</p>
<p>He was rewarded for it with a look that looked like it could cut ice. Sylvain just smiled. Neither one of them said anything. </p>
<p>And like clockwork, like always, it still ended up being Sylvain who broke first. </p>
<p>“Hey,” he’d said, to the wood and the water and maybe to Felix,  “what if I love you?”</p>
<p>Back then, by that point, the question had been ingrained in him, a splinter Sylvain just couldn’t get out. Sharp and biting, but only when his hand brushed against something just the wrong way, only when he was sentient enough to remember it was there. </p>
<p>The answering look that Felix gave was completely unreadable. Then he morphed it into a sneer.</p>
<p>“You don’t know what love is,” he’d said.</p>
<p>And Sylvain remembered thinking, as he stood there and watched the way the moonlight caught on Felix’s eyelashes in the dark, just how desperately he wished that were true.</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Sylvain wakes up very aware of two things: one, he slept like shit and all of his bones ache, and two, he seems to be located in an oven, and the horrendous heat is not at all made better by whatever large, warm object is draped all over him.</p>
<p>It takes him a few seconds to remember where he is and identify what is laying on him, and when he does, he feels himself freeze.</p>
<p>Felix has always been an early riser, and he’s not sleeping now, even with all his limbs tousled around Sylvain. He’s just straight faced, tapping away on his phone, settled neatly in Sylvain’s arms like he belongs there. </p>
<p>“You’re awake,” he remarks, as if he isn’t making Sylvain’s brain cease functioning in all capacities.</p>
<p>“Ngnhn,” Sylvain replies.</p>
<p>It’s fairly obvious that at some point sleeping back to back in the cramped car, both of them turned around and started inadvertently cuddling. This is fine—they didn’t have a lot of space, they were both trying to get comfortable, and they were both <i>asleep</i>, and everyone knows that shit you do in your sleep isn’t real or morally binding.</p>
<p>But it is one thing to get in some accidental sleep snuggles, and another thing entirely to do it on purpose, or to wake in the accidental snuggle-hold and then <i>stay there</i>.</p>
<p>Sylvain’s head feels like it’s moving ten thousand miles a minute, his thoughts all jumbled up and stumbling over each other, the most prominent train being <i>hi Felix, good morning, you sure are right here, why didn’t you move?</i></p>
<p>Admittedly, though, Sylvian is also not moving, perfectly content to stay lying completely still while he sweats profusely in this hot-ass car stranded in the middle of this hot-ass desert. </p>
<p>He lets out an exhale and watches the way Felix’s hair moves in the response to the stream of it, and tries not to pout a little when Felix makes no acknowledgement of this at all.  He just sits there, tapping away at whatever he’s looking at on his phone.</p>
<p>....Wait.</p>
<p>
  <i>Wait.</i>
</p>
<p>“Felix,” Sylvain says, slowly, staring incredulously, “is your cell service working?”</p>
<p>Felix blinks a couple times. He looks at Sylvain, then the phone back in his hand, then at Sylvain, and then his eyes widen comically.  “Jesus <i>fuck</i>,” he says, sitting straight up, almost punching Sylvian in the nose in the process. </p>
<p>“Open your GPS, please God, please please <i>please</i> work—”</p>
<p>There’s a quiet <i>ping</i> as Felix’s phone pinpoints their location and displays it on the map, a beautiful, stunning little red dot, not even that far west of a major highway. Sylvian thinks he can almost hear angel choirs in the background.</p>
<p>He throws one arm over his face to hold back some of the strange bubbling of relieved laughter that’s falling out of him, although when he peeks out he sees wetness that he’s pretty sure isn’t sweat on Felix’s face, and he says <i>Felix, are you fucking crying right now</i>, and Felix says <i>mind your business</i>, and it just makes Sylvain’s hysteria worse.</p>
<p>By some sort of miracle, they make it back to the highway. </p>
<p>They run out of gas not even three hundred meters from the nearest gas station, and have to get out of the car and push it the rest of the way. Sylvian is quite grateful for Felix’s obsession with training and working out when it happens, because he gets to mostly stand back and pretend to push, while he admires the way Felix’s muscles flex. </p>
<p>The first other human they see in nearly twenty-four hours is the old man cashier at the gas station. He looks up at them, clearly uninterested, grumbles, “Welcome, how can I help ya,” and Sylvain has to physically restraining himself from bursting into tears and maybe also kissing him.</p>
<p>They’ve travelled farther north into Sreng than they ever intended to, so they decide to head south down the highway, back toward Galatea’s general direction. They hit a truck stop about 45 minutes in, where they pay an unpretty penny for showers. Truck stop showering is an experience Sylvain would actually be fine living his whole life without ever repeating, but at least he comes out feeling less like a sweat-drowned rat, so hey, he’ll take it.</p>
<p>Lunch takes place in a fast food joint attached to said truck stop. Between the two of them, they order more food than is morally advisable—but somewhere in between his third and fourth chicken sandwich, Sylvain decides it’s justified. </p>
<p>Sitting at the gross fast food table, he steals two fries from Felix, who squawks. “I don’t know about you, but if we got the fuck out of Sreng right now, I don’t think I’d be all that sad about it,” Sylvain says. </p>
<p>Felix snatches some of Sylvain’s fries in retaliation. “What happened to ‘exploring the great unknown’? Empty stretches of desert, little towns you’ve never heard of before?”</p>
<p>“Yeahhh—as it turns out, no one’s ever heard of them because they suck.”</p>
<p>“Oh, is that it?” Felix reaches across the table and takes a long and pointed <i>gulp</i> of Sylvain’s milkshake. Sylvain has begun a fight he cannot win. “You sure you just can’t handle the heat?”</p>
<p>“Like you’re any better at handling heat, asshole.” Felix smiles against the plastic milkshake straw, and Sylvain’s heart flutters traitorously in his chest. </p>
<p>“I wouldn’t be opposed to leaving,” Felix says, graciously handing Sylvain back his own milkshake. “I’m assuming you have some sort of plan for a new route?”</p>
<p>Sylvain shrugs. “Sure.” He didn’t, actually, but he’s good at coming up with routes on the spot—been doing it for years. He pulls something straight out of his ass. “What do you think about the Oghma mountains?”</p>
<p>Felix gives him a quizzical look. “What, you want to go hiking, or something?”</p>
<p>“Could be a nice change of pace.” He grins. “We could even get a tent, go camping up there for a night. I’d love to be dazzled by your impressive boy scout knowledge.”</p>
<p>Felix predictably scowls. As a kid, he’d been a comically serious boy scout, and took great pride in his ability to do cool and manly things like construct shelter out of twigs and catch fish with his bare hands. Glenn had been an Eagle Scout, and Felix was determined to be one too. </p>
<p>That didn’t happen, of course, but Felix could still tie a mean knot. </p>
<p>“Camping and hiking take willpower,” Felix says, which means <i>I think you would suck at it</i>. He’s probably right, but as is typical around Felix, Sylvain is filled with some inexplicable desire to do shit he normally wouldn’t. </p>
<p>“All the more reason to go for it then! It’s a challenge, right?” Not that they hadn’t had a challenging enough journey already, but Felix will never back down from anything if you phrase it the right way.</p>
<p>Felix harrumphs. “Fine, then,” he says, and then they’re off, hurtling southeast toward the Oghma mountains. </p>
<p>It takes them nearly another 48 hours just to get fully out of Sreng. As the landscape slowly shifts, the long stretches of sand melting into greenery and grasses and small patches of actual trees, Sylvian swears he is never going to shit on Fhirdiad or Galatea or anywhere in Faerghus ever again. He’ll be having nightmares about sand for weeks. </p>
<p>About three or four hours out from the edge of the Oghma mountain range, they hit the sizable city of Arianrhod, where they settle in for a while and decide to search for an outdoor gear store. </p>
<p>They find a decent shop in an outlet mall, where Felix gets to relive his boy-scout dreams. </p>
<p>Sylvain has fun insisting they “really get a feel for” all the tents, and they crawl into several that are on display before staff notices and tiredly asks them to stop. They get matching pairs of hiking boots, which Felix says is embarrassing and Sylvian also thinks is embarrassing, but they look so stupid wearing them that Sylvain absolutely cannot resist the purchase.</p>
<p>They also get new water canteens, more of that protein dirt bar stuff that Felix likes, and two giant hiking packs with sleeping bags attached. Felix purchases a long knife that looks more like a small sword, and Sylvian lets it happen this time. He knows a lost cause when he sees one.</p>
<p>Their cashier is the one who helps them plot out a hiking trail. Working at a camping store only a couple of hours drive from the Oghma mountains means she’s well-versed in the area, and enthusiastically offers them advice, various hikes to pick from, and ‘insider’s tips.’ She even gives them a free map for the road with highlighted trail lines and scribbled notes in the corners.</p>
<p>They decide to go to the Tailtean Falls— a nice, solid two day hike. If they finish the drive to the lodge at the base of the mountain tonight and get on the trail early in the morning, they’ll hit the falls by sunset. They can camp on the flat rocks across the way from the main waterfall, relax, swim, sleep, and head back the next day. Easy.</p>
<p>At least, it should be. Sylvain has never actually overnight hiked before, but he’s not terribly out of shape and Felix isn’t out of shape at all, so he figures this will be fine. Right?</p>
<p>At about mile three of what seems to be straight uphill climbing, Sylvian isn’t so sure.</p>
<p>“Felix.” It comes out pathetic, just a tiny little wheeze. “Can we like, die from this?”</p>
<p>“Shut up,” is Felix’s helpful response, but he betrays his bitchery by turning and giving Sylvain a concerned side eye. “Don’t fall behind.”</p>
<p>“Maybe try not walking so far ahead,” Sylvian grumbles, but he half-jogs to catch up with Felix anyway.</p>
<p>They progress like this for most of the day—Felix marches onward, Sylvian complains and slows down, Felix complains that Sylvain is complaining, they sit on a rock somewhere and catch their breath, and then they continue. </p>
<p>At one point they have to wade across a narrow creek, and Sylvain says <i>aww look, we have matching water stains on our matching shoes,</i> and Felix shoves him so hard he almost falls <i>in</i> in the creek, laughing all the way.</p>
<p>The sun is just leaning into setting when they first hear the rush of the falls in the distance. Felix grabs Sylvain with one arm, hisses <i>wait, be quiet</i>, and it appears—a slow rumble of white noise, muffled and unrelenting. Felix’s face lights up with honest excitement. Looking at him makes Sylvain feel like he put his brain in a microwave. </p>
<p>The sound of it teases them for a while longer, growing steadier and louder with each step. Sylvian stumbles forward a few times, eagerness to finally reach the end making his movements sloppy. </p>
<p>Felix grabs his arm to steady him once and then simply doesn’t let go, fingers wrapped firmly around his wrist while he tugs them both down the trail. Sylvain decides that if his cheeks are a little red, he can reasonably chalk it up to all the physical exertion. </p>
<p>His first real sight of it is through the trees—just a glimpse of the white rush of the central waterfall and all the smaller streams branching off of it, like veins against the rocks. He’s the one who pulls Felix forward this time, lugging them both to the cliffside and pulling back the branches to get a better view.</p>
<p>The heart of the Tailtean Falls pulses like a living thing. The pool at the bottom is flat and clear, to the point where it looks deceptively shallow, but Sylvain knows that anything dropped down there is never coming back. It’s both awe-inspiring and terrifying—similar to thinking about deep unexplored reaches of space, or standing too close to Felix.</p>
<p>“You think we can get down to the bottom?” Felix asks, and before Sylvain can process it, he’s already sliding down a rock, scrambling over branches as he descends to the area by the base of the falls. </p>
<p>“Christ, Felix, wait—”</p>
<p>Sylvain nearly slams right into him as he rushes to catch up, and then they crawl down together, only commenting to say things like <i>hey, I think the slope is less steep over here</i>, or <i>that rock isn’t steady, be careful</i>. </p>
<p>Being at the bottom in the water impact zone feels like standing in a wind tunnel, but there’s something comforting in it, almost. Sylvain can barely hear himself think. It’s nice.</p>
<p>“You wanna find somewhere nearby to set up camp?” he yells over the crash of the falls. He’d kill to set down this hiking pack.</p>
<p>Felix nods his assent, and they begin to scour the area. They end up finding a secluded little alcove a ways away, the large, moss-covered boulders serving to block some of the sound. It’s not quiet by any means, but it feels somehow quaint, and private.</p>
<p>Putting up the tent is an exercise. Sylvain has never put up a tent himself before, but assumes he’ll be fine because he’s detail oriented and doesn’t have problems following directions—which are a concept that Felix rejects on a matter of principle. Even suggesting <i>glancing</i> at the instruction booklet makes Felix scoff.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, Felix is also stupid. They figure it out eventually.</p>
<p>After setting up camp and resting for a bit, they eat the sandwiches they packed for dinner, and then make a beeline back toward the falls.</p>
<p>“I’ll race you,” Felix says, as they start to slide back down the rocks.</p>
<p>“Do I get anything if I win?”</p>
<p>“Why don’t you find out?”</p>
<p>(He does win, for the record. Longer limbs better for hopping over branches and all that. He doesn’t get anything, unless you count Felix’s petulant expression as a reward, which— honestly, yeah, it might be.)</p>
<p>He doesn't remember who moved first, but it doesn’t take long for both of them to end up tossed into the pools at the base of the waterfall. The water is fucking freezing—the shock of it makes his joints lock up and his ears ring for just a second, and he breaks onto the surface with a loud scream of two-parts anguish and three-parts joy.</p>
<p>Next to him, Felix emerges clearly feeling much the same sentiment. Sylvian laughs at his chattering teeth and can’t help but send a splash in his direction, which Felix of course retaliates. </p>
<p>It’s war for a while. All the movement helps Sylvain stay warm, even as the sun begins to disappear behind the falls.</p>
<p>He eventually crawls out of the water and sits on a flat rock to drip-dry while the sky bleeds red above them. He huddles into himself, feeling the warm summer air slowly settle the goosebumps across his skin. Felix almost seems reluctant to get out, but he settles next to Sylvain all the same. His hair is coming loose.</p>
<p>“I didn’t think you liked swimming all that much,” Sylvain comments. In high school, the swim team frequently tried to recruit Felix, likely because he was involved in other sports and had a good build for it—but Felix had never agreed, or expressed much interest in the team.</p>
<p>He shrugs. “It’s alright. I’ve never hated it.” </p>
<p>He hesitates, like he wants to say something else—opens and closes his mouth once, twice. Then he says, “My soulmate liked it. She used to be on a team.”</p>
<p>Sylvain’s breath catches. He feels like he just swallowed a rock, slinking in his throat, burning all the way down. </p>
<p>“Oh yeah?”</p>
<p>Felix fiddles with his hands. “Yeah.”</p>
<p>He gives Felix the best friendly nudge he can. “You should tell me more about her,” he says, because he knows Felix wants to, and because he hates himself just enough to want to hear it.</p>
<p>“She was... small.”</p>
<p>“Wow, Felix. Enlightening.”</p>
<p>A huffed sound, not happy enough to be a laugh. “Shut up.”</p>
<p>Felix leans back on his hands and looks up, toward the mountains, toward the top of the falls. Sylvian is grateful for the sound of it now, filling the space between them, dulling all their edges.</p>
<p>“I don’t know what else. She had red hair. Like you.”</p>
<p>Sylvain doesn’t know what to do with that information in any capacity. “Is that significant?”</p>
<p>“I don’t know,” Felix says again. “For a while, I wondered if it meant—if I had a <i>type</i>.” He says the word ‘type’ like the concept of experiencing romantic attraction was a villainous thing waiting around the corner to kill him.</p>
<p>And yeah, Sylvain <i>really</i> doesn’t know what to think about the implications of Felix worrying that his ‘type’ was ‘red hair’, and he doesn’t want to think about it too closely, not without getting through this conversation first.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, though, it’s still knocked him off kilter, preoccupying his brain and ruining any chance he has at tact. This is how Sylvain makes the excellent decision to carelessly blurt out, “Do you miss her?”</p>
<p>Felix’s whole face pinches. He shrivels, he tightens his hands into fists. </p>
<p>“How could I?” he bites. His voice is not shaking, but it wants to. “I didn’t know her. I met her twice. We weren’t even friends.”</p>
<p>“Felix,” Sylvain says, slowly, like he’s approaching a wild animal. “You’re still allowed to be sad.”</p>
<p>Felix laughs at this. It’s a horrible, misshapen thing. </p>
<p>“Sad for what? For the loss of a total stranger? For the loss of a— of a <i>concept</i>, like soulmates?” He kicks at a rock by his feet; it goes sailing into the water. “You know as well as I do that the fairytale soulmate bullshit people tell you growing up does more harm than good.”</p>
<p>Sylvain hums. “Yeah, maybe,” he says. “But...”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>For most of his life, and always against his better judgement, Sylvain had thought that one day, he’d fix things with Miklan. Thought that maybe one day, Miklan would just—grow out of it, would see Sylvain’s inevitably dysfunctional soulmate relationship and realize that he’d been wrong, that having a soulmate had always, always been a curse. </p>
<p>It’d been stupid to ever hope for friendship from Miklan, and even in his wildest daydreams, Sylvain found it hard to ever let it get quite that far. But he’d still wanted <i>something</i>, if only for some fucking closure from it all, so Sylvain could rest easy, so he could finally understand which parts of it he’d actually deserved. </p>
<p>Rarely, though, does it get to be that simple.</p>
<p>It’s the kind of loss that spirals away from you—the loss of something you never got to have. The day of Miklan’s funeral, it mocked him and nearly swallowed him whole. Something had been wrenched away from him that was never in his grasp, and all it had left him with was not knowing what to do with his hands.</p>
<p>He can’t stop Felix from going down that hole. He could never stop himself, not after Miklan, not even after his father. All he can do is stand by the edge and wait for Felix to pull himself out of it.</p>
<p>But—he could offer <i>something</i>, at least.</p>
<p>For the second time that trip, and still one of few times in his life, Sylvain opens his mouth to share a story. A different story this time, one about his brother, about words like <i>eventually</i> and <i>hope</i>, and how they can feel like suffocation—about how he still doesn’t always know what to do with his hands, and sometimes Felix might not either. Sometimes shit just hurts, sometimes not everything makes sense.</p>
<p>By the time he’s done, Felix is trembling like a leaf. He’s wound taut and shaking all at once, taking great big heaving breaths—but he won’t cry, Sylvain knows. Felix made a promise to himself that he was done with crying years ago.</p>
<p>When he does finally speak, his voice comes out like something scraped clean. </p>
<p>“I could have loved her,” Felix says. “I mean, I don’t fucking know, I guess. But I think I could have loved her. That’s the worst part.”</p>
<p>Sylvain aches. </p>
<p>“I know,” he whispers. “I’m sorry.”</p>
<p>And just like when they first threw each other into the water, Sylvain isn’t sure who moves first. There’s a snap, like some kind of unspoken signal passing between them, and then all of the sudden Felix is in Sylvain’s arms, his head buried in Sylvain’s neck, his arms still shaking. Sylvain runs one hand down the bumps of Felix’s spine and feels his erratic heartbeat, screaming against his chest.</p>
<p>They stay there underneath the roar of the waterfall, shivering together, until Felix’s heartbeat calms, until Sylvain can feel each <i>ba-dump, ba-dump</i> as surely as if it were his own.</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Taking the tent back down the next morning is easier than it was putting it up, but getting it to fit back in the tiny bag it came in is next to impossible. Sylvain swears there has to be some kind of black magic involved.</p>
<p>“Did you sleep alright?” Sylvain asks, as he makes yet another disastrous attempt at folding the tent into a reasonably sized shape.</p>
<p>Felix shrugs. “Well enough.” He curses when one of the supporting poles bends strangely in his hands and slaps him in the face.</p>
<p>They haven’t addressed last night since it happened—just quietly crawled back up to the tent and passed out. Sylvain wonders if they will. Somehow, he doubts it; Felix has too much pride to do things like ‘revisit emotional vulnerability’. It’s something they have in common.</p>
<p>There was one point mentioned Sylvain wants to talk about, though, if he can work up the guts to bring it up.</p>
<p>Hiking back to the car feels simultaneously easier and more terrible than it was getting to the falls. Easier because they’re taking the same path back, so Sylvian remembers the route and has a good sense of how far they’ve travelled and how far they have left to go—a stark contrast from the seemingly never ending march there.</p>
<p>Terrible because they have no enjoyable destination like a gorgeous waterfall to look forward to this time, and because the atmosphere between them is significantly more awkward than it was yesterday.</p>
<p>It’s not too bad, all things considered— hiking tends to leave one out of breath, which means there isn’t a lot of room for making casual conversation anyway. They both have to focus on not tripping on any of the rocks or gnarled branches as they progress, so they mostly face forward and keep to themselves. </p>
<p>Even so, Sylvain’s mind keeps wandering. </p>
<p>And evidently, Felix’s too, if the startled shout and subsequent <i>thump</i> to his left is any indication. </p>
<p>Sylvain whips around to find Felix on the ground. “Shit, are you okay?”</p>
<p>Felix groans, one hand firmly wrapped around his left ankle. “I’m fine,” he grimaces. “But, I think my foot might’ve—<i>shit</i>.”</p>
<p>Sylvain rushes over and pries Felix’s fingers away from his leg. His ankle looks normal, but Sylvian can tell that compared to the other one, it’s already beginning to swell a bit.</p>
<p>“Fuck,” Sylvain mutters. “Will you be able to walk?” They still have close to half a day’s worth of hiking left.</p>
<p>“Yes, I said I was <i>fine</i>.” Felix grits his teeth. “Besides, I don’t have much of a choice, do I?” </p>
<p>Sylvain falters, but he doesn’t have a counterargument to that. “Here, let me help you up, at least.”</p>
<p>Together, they lug Felix back to his feet, but he hisses when he tries to put any weight on his left side. Sylvain hovers nearby uncertainly. </p>
<p>“Here,” Sylvain murmurs again, sliding in to wrap one arm around his waist and support Felix on his left. Felix purses his lips, but he thankfully doesn’t refuse the help.</p>
<p>It’s slow-going. Painfully slow, honestly. Felix keeps swallowing sharp intakes of breath and holding his back ramrod straight, but Sylvain can tell that even this dragging, snail’s pace is hurting him. It doesn’t help that the ground is uneven and they’re going downhill, making steady footing all the more important.</p>
<p>“This isn’t going to work,” Sylvain says. Making sure Felix is supporting himself enough to stand on his own, he crawls out of their previous hold and moves to swing around his hiking pack so it’s on his chest instead, leaving his back free. Then he goes and squats with said back to Felix, holding his arms out like an invitation.</p>
<p>“What are you doing,” comes Felix’s voice, flat. Sylvain can’t see his expression right now, but it’s not at all hard to imagine.</p>
<p>“Helping you. Come on, get on, we’ll cover way more ground this way.”</p>
<p>“No.”</p>
<p>Sylvain does his best to push down any exasperation. “<i>Felix</i>.”</p>
<p>“You’ll get tired.”</p>
<p>“Then we’ll take breaks.”</p>
<p>Felix still hesitates, so Sylvain tries a different tack. “If you push your leg too far walking on it now, it’ll get worse. You’d have to spend the rest of the summer in crutches and won’t be able to train at all. That what you want?”</p>
<p>The fear of long-term injury is at least enough to strike the fear of God into Felix. “Fine,” he grumbles, hobbling forward and pressing his weight onto Sylvain's back, slotting his arms loosely around Sylvain’s neck. </p>
<p>Sylvain wraps one hand around each of Felix’s thighs and stands up, shifting around to make sure Felix is comfortably situated, before starting back down the trail.</p>
<p>Felix isn’t exactly light, but he’s not that big either. Sylvain will survive the physical exertion part, at least. The emotional part—well, he’s working on it.</p>
<p>The good thing about hiking while carrying someone else is that it <i>is</i> very physically taxing, so he doesn’t actually have long to panic about the way Felix’s thighs feel in his hands or the way his arms feel around his neck. His brain is fully busy thinking about how fucking sweaty he is instead, and how much his arms ache.</p>
<p>This is not withstanding the fun little moments that happen every once and a while when Felix decides to do weird shit. Like now, for example.</p>
<p><i>Nuzzle</i> is a strange word, and not a word that Sylvain would normally use to describe anything, regardless of the circumstances. But he lacks other appropriate description to explain whatever the fuck Felix is doing, shoving his face into Sylvain’s hair.</p>
<p><i>He's just tired,</i> Sylvain thinks. He doesn’t know how well Felix slept last night, but Sylvain’s experience in a sleeping bag in the woods was certainly not anything to write home about. He was exhausted enough from the hike and the swimming that he’d passed out quickly, but he still hadn’t woken feeling fully rested, or anything like that.</p>
<p>Felix was probably tired, and his leg hurt, and the angle he was at must make it awkward to crane his neck up in a way that <i>didn’t</i> end up with his face in Sylvain’s hair. He feels Felix let out a breath against him and he desperately repeats these facts to himself.</p>
<p>But the combination of Felix and Sylvain’s hair makes him remember the point he was curious about the night before, and he figures if he’ll ever get the chance to sate his curiosity, it’ll be now.</p>
<p>“So,” Sylvain begins, as nonchalant as possible. “Red hair, huh.”</p>
<p>Felix almost imperceptibly stiffens. If Sylvain weren’t holding him, he wouldn’t have noticed.</p>
<p>“What of it?”</p>
<p>“I was just wondering how you drew that conclusion,” Sylvain laughs. “I mean, if you used to run around getting crushes on redheads back in the day, I never noticed.”</p>
<p>Felix goes very noticeably still now. “Sylvain,” he starts, sounding incredulous, “Are you being serious right now?”</p>
<p>“What?”</p>
<p>“What?”</p>
<p>Sylvain is lost. “I mean, I don’t know, I guess we lost touch in college, so there could have been someone then that you never t—”</p>
<p>“That’s not—stop dicking around. I don’t know what you’re trying to do, but I know there’s no way you don’t <i>know</i>,” Felix snaps, voice tight and sharp. And yeah, Sylvain isn’t a total idiot, but there’s no way that he’s implying that—</p>
<p>“Are you…” Sylvain swallows. “You’re not—I mean, toward me, you never…”</p>
<p>“Are you stupid?” Felix asks, and when Sylvain doesn’t respond, he makes a noise of utter disbelief. “Christ. You are. You’re stupid.”</p>
<p>“Fuckin’ enlighten me, then,” Sylvain says, just shy of snappish, his head still reeling and pulse feeling like it’s gone missing-in-action. </p>
<p>Sure, they’d had a lot of strange moments these past two weeks. But Sylvain had mostly chalked those up to the lingering affection he’d always had and would probably never be able to fully get rid of—any leaning toward Sylvain was Felix’s clumsy attempt at letting his walls down, at trying to accept friendship and help for once in his life.</p>
<p>He’d never thought for a second that Felix had been doing it on purpose, that maybe he’d felt the push-and-push tension between them too.</p>
<p>“Obviously it was you. It was always you,” Felix snaps, like he isn’t delivering a life shattering statement. It is now Sylvain’s turn to stiffen. Felix makes another incredulous noise at this. “Sylvain, I don’t buy for a second that you <i>didn’t know</i>.”</p>
<p>Sylvain doesn't want to have this conversation like this— with Felix on his back, neither of them able either to see each other. He needs to look at Felix’s face, to determine if any of this is bullshit. Felix has always worn every emotion he’s ever felt straight on his sleeve.</p>
<p>He sees a rather large shaded rock not far from them, so he marches over and firmly deposits Felix on top of it. Felix blinks wide-eyed at his sudden relocation for a moment, before he goes right back to glaring at Sylvain. </p>
<p>Sylvain shrugs his backpack off his front—God, the sweet relief of not carrying any weight anymore—and grabs his water bottle. After a few moments of pacing and drowning himself drinking it, he takes a deep breath and turns to Felix with a determined look.</p>
<p>“Okay,” he says, grave. “Are you telling me that you, at one point, were in love with me, and you had our entire lives to say something about it, and you just… <i>didn’t</i>?”</p>
<p>Felix upturns his nose with a venomous, haughty expression. “Why should I have said anything?”</p>
<p>Sylvain lets out a disbelieving laugh. “You knew the way that I felt!”</p>
<p>Now Felix’s eyebrows knit together. “The way that <i>you</i> felt? What the fuck are you talking about?”</p>
<p>Sylvain wants to extract his brain from his scalp and send it sailing down the mountainside like a bowling ball. He thinks it would be more fun than this.</p>
<p>“You knew. <i>Everyone</i> knew.” When Felix still gives him a look possessing very little understanding, Sylvain seriously contemplates pulling his hair out. “I told you! I <i>kissed</i> you!”</p>
<p>Felix’s eyes flash dangerously at this, and he sneers. “Oh, you mean that time in the middle of one of your asshole benders where you slapped your mouth on mine just to make me angry? Fuck of a confession, Sylvain.”</p>
<p>He winces. “Okay, sure, admittedly not one of my finest moments. But—” he falters. “I thought you knew. You were so stark in your rejection back then—I don’t know how you expect me to believe that you ever…”</p>
<p>Felix scowls, his proverbial claws out. “And why shouldn’t I have been? You were just fucking around. That’s all you ever did—fuck around. Do you think I never noticed your little modus operandi back then? The kiss was bait, to make me hate you, to make shit explode in your face like you were always so fucking keen to do.”</p>
<p>Felix wants this to head straight into a full on knock-down drag-out. That’s what he’s always done—spit all his venom out at once, then walk away from the aftermath. Sometimes, if you’re lucky, he’ll come back to clean it up later.</p>
<p>Sylvain is used to it, sure. But despite just walking halfway down a mountain with a grown man on his back, this is still the most exhausted he’s felt all day.</p>
<p>“Well,” he says, then laughs hollowly, even though nothing is all that funny. “It wasn’t. I wasn’t.” </p>
<p>Felix bristles, although he’s starting to cool. Less fire, twice as sharp. </p>
<p>“Every nice or flirty thing you ever said to me you treated like a joke. You laughed it off, you took it back. What was I supposed to think?”</p>
<p>“But you know why, right?” Sylvian asks. Felix has to know. He has to—but somehow, Sylvain feels like he doesn’t. </p>
<p>His terse silence is answer enough. </p>
<p>“You had a <i>soulmate</i>, Felix.”</p>
<p>Felix frowns at this. “So did you.” </p>
<p>“That’s not—” Sylvain runs one hand through his hair and gives a wry smile. Jesus Christ. “You’ve said it yourself before. I’m a good-for-nothing. My soulmate was doomed from the start. But you, you were supposed to be…” Sylvian swallows. He’s surprised at how difficult it is. </p>
<p>“I never wanted to ruin you, too,” Sylvian says. “I couldn’t.”</p>
<p>Because yeah, he’d always liked to play Icarus. He was content to fly until he burned, especially since he knew it’d inevitably happen anyway—if anything, he usually spent time looking for ways to burn faster.</p>
<p>But Felix had a soulmate, and even if Sylvain didn’t—<i>couldn’t</i>—believe in a love like that, he wanted it to be true, for Felix. From the beginning, he’d wanted Felix to be happy. It was the one selfless desire Sylvain had ever possessed, and he wasn’t even sure how selfless it really was. </p>
<p>Felix goes quiet. Sylvian can’t tell how angry he is anymore—his fences are coming up, his face shuttered. </p>
<p>“Is this really what you think?” Felix asks. The edges of his eyes have tightened, expression morphing into something... pitying, almost. He’s looking at Sylvian with an expression Sylvain’s not sure he can take. “You think pretty highly of yourself, to think you could have ruined my life single-handedly.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, well,” Sylvian says, good humored despite everything, “you certainly gave ruining your own life your best shot. Don’t worry, I remember.”</p>
<p>There’s a pregnant pause. Felix huffs, crossing his arms tightly and gripping creases into his forearms, and then looks straight at Sylvain with a blazing kind of determination. Felix looks him in the eyes so rarely, Sylvain feels frozen in place.</p>
<p>“You’re an idiot if you think alternating affection with your flippant disregard was going to convince me to keep my distance from you. I keep all the distance I want from people by myself.”</p>
<p>Sylvain laughs. “Noted.”</p>
<p>“And you’re an even bigger idiot if you think I never did or still don’t care for you, after all this time,” Felix continues. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t want to be.”</p>
<p>Sylvain takes a deep, shaky breath. He’s still frozen in place, sweaty and tired and throat dry, and he feels like something is bleeding out of him—some emotion from the pit of his stomach that he’s always had but never had a place for. He doesn’t know what it is or to do with it, not really.</p>
<p>But he’s gotta do something. Felix is still just sitting there on the stupid rock, one swollen ankle held out in front of him, and they’ve got half a mountain trail left to go—there will be time for assessing the damage later. </p>
<p>So he gives a watery smile, says, “Noted,” again, voice hoarse, and picks up his hiking pack.</p>
<p>With impressively minimal awkwardness, Felix manages to situate himself back onto Sylvain’s back, and they start down the trail again. They’re not totally silent through the process, but they don’t say much, and certainly nothing of any consequence. They’ve had enough of that for one day, he guesses.</p>
<p>The rest of the hike goes much faster, probably because Sylvain’s thoughts are so preoccupied. He feels like he just blinks before he sees the outline of the camper’s lodge at the base of the mountain, where Sylvain’s car and a real bed and room for the night are waiting for them. </p>
<p>They got a later start today and traveled much slower, Sylvain having to stop and set Felix down semi-frequently, so the sun has nearly already sunk below the horizon by the time they arrive.</p>
<p>“How bad does your ankle feel?” Sylvain asks. “Doubt there’s much around here, but we could ice and wrap it tonight and try and find a walk-in clinic tomorrow, if you wanted. I think I’ve got a first aid kid somewhere in my car.”</p>
<p>“That’s fine. It doesn’t really hurt, I’ll live.” This means that it does, in fact, hurt, but doesn't hurt enough to inspire honestly from Felix yet, which is a good sign. </p>
<p>Felix doesn’t let Sylvain carry him into the lodge, and instead makes him set him down outside the doors so he can lean on Sylvain’s side and hobble to their room with dignity. They both clearly look like they’ve been in the woods for 48 hours, and Felix rarely comes across as dignified on a good day, but Sylvian lets it slide.</p>
<p>It turns out that he does have a compression bandage in his car, although the kit it came out of is kind of old and in questionable condition. Better than nothing. Sylvain retrieves it and a plastic bag to put ice in from the front desk, and then goes full doctor mode. </p>
<p>It’s not very impressive. He has to look up how to wrap an ankle on his phone.</p>
<p>He nevertheless wraps the bandage around Felix’s leg slowly and carefully, silent. The air conditioning in the lodge doesn’t work very well. The atmosphere between them is stifling. </p>
<p>“Thanks,” Felix murmurs when he’s done. His leg has been propped up on a stack of pillows<br/>
they stole from the little loveseat in the corner, bag of ice resting precariously on top of it.</p>
<p>Sylvain takes a moment. There were a lot of things he left unsaid, that afternoon—and sometimes he’d be content to let it go like that, but right now—he feels like he shouldn’t. Honesty being the best policy and all, even if he is really fucking bad at it.</p>
<p>“Listen,” he starts. “About earlier…”</p>
<p>The truth was, Sylvian had thought about it and had continued thinking about it, that weird little thought that sounded a lot like <i>maybe</i>. He’d even guiltily thought about it when he’d first heard Felix’s current situation, way back in the car with Ingrid. Thought, <i>if Felix doesn’t have a soulmate anymore, then maybe, we—</i></p>
<p>It was a dangerous thought, though. One because Sylvain was not at all confident that he wouldn’t fuck it up, and two because he was sure that Felix would never be willing to try. Then they’d had that conversation earlier, and Sylvain wondered how much he had always been wrong about everything, and how much he would continue to be left stupefied in Felix’s midst. </p>
<p>And the thought had resurfaced with a vengeance: <i>maybe, maybe, maybe.</i></p>
<p>“Sylvain,” Felix is saying. Sylvain doesn’t hear him.</p>
<p>Sylvian had invited Felix on this trip for a variety of reasons. He knew firsthand how much Felix sucked at processing anything, and avoiding and running away from shit was always how Sylvain had processed most of everything—so he thought, fuck it, let Felix give it a shot. He also really did miss him, and wanted to take the chance to give Felix a tentative space back in his life.</p>
<p>
  <i>“Sylvain.”</i>
</p>
<p>But deep down, and maybe even unconsciously, the thing he’d wanted most was an answer for it all. Without a soulmate in Felix’s future, was there an empty place in Felix’s life, one where Sylvain could slide in without ruining anything? Would he fit? Did he even deserve the chance to try?</p>
<p>“Goddamnit, Sylvain,” says Felix. In one fluid motion, he slides an arm behind Sylvain’s neck and yanks him near, making it so he is leaning over where Felix is laying on the bed rather than sitting next to him. </p>
<p>It startles Sylvain out of all his thoughts. They are so much closer than before, face to face, and the feeling of Felix’s breath on his lips makes Sylvain’s head fill with static.</p>
<p>“Stop fucking thinking so much,” Felix says, and then he kisses him.</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>The following days pass in a giddy and incoherent sort of state— Sylvian would call it the “honeymoon phase” of a relationship, but he’s not sure if whatever is going on between them should technically be classified as “a relationship”, or if it’s still very firmly in the field of “a thing that is happening”. Whatever it is, he is quite confident that it certainly is <i>happening</i>.</p>
<p>It sort of opened the floodgates—the kiss. Two weeks and several odd years of dancing around each other being suddenly released will do that. </p>
<p>Sylvain learns many things. He learns that Felix approaches blowjobs with the same sort of competitive vengeance that he brings to just about anything else. He’s very determined to <i>win</i>, whatever the fuck that entails (and for what it’s worth, Sylvain has no qualms whatsoever about letting him do so). </p>
<p>He learns that sharing a hotel room with Felix and sharing a <i>bed</i> in a hotel room with Felix are very separate experiences, and that staying in shitty motels is way more fun when you can keep one bed kindly reserved for sleeping and the other bed for exclusive use of doing other things. </p>
<p>He learns that Felix unconsciously cuddles things in his sleep, and will turn an excellent shade of purple if you dare to point this out while he’s awake. </p>
<p>It’s mostly stupid. They’re mostly stupid. They keep getting lost—they’ve abandoned all concept of a route at this point, and have just been wandering the area between the Oghma mountains and Galatea, no real destination in mind. </p>
<p>Felix does actually have a mildly sprained ankle—they got it checked out at a small clinic the next day—but he gets a walking boot and a set of crutches, and shouldn’t have to stay totally off of it for more than a week or so before he can hobble around in the boot. It really doesn’t affect them too much. They spend nearly all of their time either driving somewhere new or making out, neither of which require ankles. </p>
<p> They drive through forests, past flowering fields, and back to Arianrhod just for the fuck of it. They revisit the outdoor gear shop to thank the cashier for the hiking tips, but she just gasps and laughs at Felix’s booted foot. </p>
<p> Felix idly and somewhat jokingly makes the suggestion that they should crawl back into the tents on display again, but he has a look on his face when doing so that Sylvain is beginning to recognize and does not trust. Sylvain has a lot of dumb shit under his belt, but he’s never actually been arrested for public indecency, although Felix seems kind of interested in getting him there.</p>
<p> Anyway, they don’t do that. Sylvain makes them leave the store. They do end up fucking around in public, but it’s in a totally empty and rather secluded area of a public park, which is arguably better than inside the tent store. </p>
<p> It’s good. Sweaty, and stupid, and altogether sometimes too much, but it’s good.</p>
<p>They end up staying the rest of the day in Arianrhod, and getting a hotel there for the night.</p>
<p> “You wanna head back soon?” Sylvain asks as they get ready for bed. They’ve been on the road for about two weeks—a little over, actually, but he sort of got shitty about keeping track during the past few days. </p>
<p> He’s not super keen on returning Felix to Galatea, mainly because he’s not sure what’s supposed to be happening after. Sylvain generally tries to think about “after” as little as possible. </p>
<p> But it is something they’ll have to address eventually, and in the beginning, he’d promised Felix two weeks. He’d like to stay true to his word—part of that whole ‘being better’ thing. </p>
<p>They also really are running out of stuff to do, unless you count attaching themselves to each other in increasingly weird ways, which—theoretically—could be done anywhere. </p>
<p>“Sure,” Felix answers, from where he’s combing out his wet hair. Sylvian approaches. </p>
<p>“Can I?” he asks. Sylvain has always loved Felix’s hair; he’s paid a lot of attention to it recently. Felix gives him an almost wary look, but dutifully hands over the brush, and Sylvain begins working through the tangles.</p>
<p>They settle into an easy sort of peace. Felix is the one who breaks it. He speaks slowly, the way he does when he’s actually given some thought to his words, a habit he doesn’t fall into often.</p>
<p>“You have… a soulmate.”</p>
<p>“Yeah.”</p>
<p> “It isn’t me.”</p>
<p> “Well, not technically.” A little laugh. “And?”</p>
<p> Felix scoffs. “What do you mean <i>and</i>. You might actually meet your soulmate someday—your real one.”</p>
<p> “You are my soulmate, Felix.” After all of this, this is something Sylvain has decided on, and the universe can pry it from his cold, dead hands. </p>
<p>Felix goes red, but his brows furrow. “Don’t. I’m trying to ask you an actual question.”</p>
<p> Sylvain isn’t stupid. He knows what Felix is thinking about: about love at first sight, about a magical first date he’d had at a karaoke bar. And then, one layer deeper, unspoken: is this enough? Could this ever possibly be enough?</p>
<p> It’s almost ironic. All his life, Sylvian had envied the casual nonchalance Felix had toward soulmates, the way he had never seemed to give having one the weight it deserved. Now, mysteriously, he’s the one who has to convince Felix to slack his fear-filled grip on the concept, as if it hadn’t taken Sylvian years and years to get to a place where he could even think about doing so himself.</p>
<p>Sylvian runs the brush through Felix’s hair one final time, before turning him around so they’re facing each other.</p>
<p>“Look,” Sylvain says. “I get it. I do. Believe me when I say I’ve wasted a lot of time and energy thinking about soulmates. But, Felix—”</p>
<p>He pauses here to grab Felix’s hand and runs his thumb along his knuckles, warm, steady and slow. Then he leans in and leaves one light brush against Felix’s lips, not demanding anything, not even asking anything. Just an expression of presence, there because he can be.</p>
<p>“This is stronger than that,” he says, forehead on Felix’s, lips hovering. “It just is.” Jesus, this is embarrassing. He steels himself to continue. 

</p>
<p>“Fate, destiny, all that bullshit. It’ll always come second to the choices we make. This is my <i>choice</i>, alright? I’m choosing you.”</p>
<p>Felix blinks at him, his cheeks and ears stained slightly red. His brow is still furrowed a bit. Sylvain knows it will be hard for him to accept that answer—honestly, it’s still hard for <i>Sylvain</i> to accept that answer. It’s not easy to unravel the way you know the world works.</p>
<p>But if he were willing to try, for anyone—it would be for Felix.</p>
<p> “Besides,” Sylvain continues, “if they really are my soulmate, then they should understand me, right? So they should understand that my choice is you. And if they don’t, they were a shitty soulmate for me from the start.”</p>
<p>He smiles, despite how much he feels like some sappy motherfucker from one of the soap operas Dorothea likes so much. “Well? What do you think?”</p>
<p>Felix yanks Sylvain back in for another kiss. “I think you’re stupid,” he says after a moment, against his mouth. Sylvian lets his grin grow into it. One of them—maybe both—melt. </p>
<p>Yeah, Sylvain thinks. It’s good.</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Alas, all good things do come to an end. So they do what Sylvain has always done—they return to Ingrid.</p>
<p>“You’re telling her,” Felix says, in the parking lot of the apartment complex back in Galatea. They’re both cramped and sweaty from the final stretch of the drive—the point past justifiable pit stops, where you just have to accept your state of modest misery until arrival.</p>
<p>Sylvain snorts. “Why can’t you tell her?”</p>
<p> “She likes you more than me,” Felix says. Sylvain thinks about arguing the point, but decides he either can’t, or just won’t.</p>
<p>“I’m going up to my apartment,” Felix continues. “And then you’re going to tell her, and then you’re going to join me. In my apartment.” </p>
<p>
  
    “Aye aye, captain.”
  
</p>
<p>
  
    “Don’t be weird,” Felix snips, but he looks at Sylvain with this fascinating sort of fondness while he’s saying it, and Sylvain’s heart skips a comical beat.
  
</p>
<p>
  
    They both lumber out of the car, gathering their bags and heading inside. The elevator hits Felix’s floor first, and before he leaves, he turns and gives Sylvain a quick peck. Sylvain hums in surprise against his lips.
  
</p>
<p>
  
    Felix takes two steps out of the elevator and then thinks better of it, turning around and rushing back in to attach their lips again for just a second longer. He breaks it off with a red face, refusing to meet Sylvain’s eyes as he really does hurriedly leave for his front door. 
  
</p>
<p>
  
    Sylvain watches him through the elevator doors as they’re closing. Felix is so bad at acting nonchalant as he walks that it looks like he’s wading knee-deep through invisible mud.
  
</p>
<p>
  
    God, Sylvain is so in love.  
  
</p>
<p>
  
    Ingrid is both happy and surprised to see him when she answers her own door.
  
</p>
<p>
  
    “Oh, you’re back.” She frowns at him a bit, because she wouldn’t be Ingrid if she didn’t.  “You could’ve called.”
  
</p>
<p>
  
    He laughs. “Yeah, sorry. Would’ve if I thought you were going to be busy.”
  
</p>
<p>
  
    If she notices the slight jab at her social life, she ignores it. “Is Felix…”
  
</p>
<p>
  
    “Downstairs,” Sylvain finishes. “He’s fine, just putting his stuff away.” He vaguely gestures to his own stuff as he says it, the backpack slung over his shoulder. Ingrid blinks.
  
</p>
<p>
  
    “Oh, right, yes—come in.” She steps aside from the door, and Sylvain drops his shit unceremoniously in the living room and plops down onto the couch. 
  
</p>
<p>
  
    “Don’t worry, I don’t have to crash here tonight. Unless you want me to, of course,” he adds, giving her a little eyebrow wiggle. She diplomatically doesn’t react, though she does give him an unamused look. No fun, that one. 
  
</p>
<p>
  
    “I’m surprised you yourself came back to Galatea at all,” Ingrid says. “I figured you would just drop Felix off and then continue on your way to—wherever it is you were going before all of this.”
  
</p>
<p>
  
    “Ah, well...” he falters for a moment, but gets his nerve back quickly. No time like the present. “I might be done with it, for a while. Driving.”
  
</p>
<p>
  
    Ingrid sits down across from him, slow and cautious. Her face flings through several different emotions—surprise, relief, pride?—and then right back to suspicion.
  
</p>
<p>
  
    “Is that so?” she says, which is Ingrid for <i>explain yourself</i>. It almost makes him laugh.
  
</p>
<p>
  
    
      
        So he tells her, like Felix had asked him to do. He explains what had happened on the trip, and the tentative and maybe convoluted and maybe insane plan that he and Felix had begun crafting in the car, on that last leg home. 
      
    
  
</p>
<p>
  
    
      
        Objectively, Sylvain could not stay on the road forever. All the remnants of his old life were back in Fhirdiad, including his mother, and what was left of his ties to the company.  
      
    
  
</p>
<p>
  
    
      
        Galatea was also, objectively, not Felix’s home. The time spent here had served him well, but both Felix and Ingrid had understood from the moment he moved in that it wouldn’t be a permanent relocation. Ingrid had always felt duty-bound to Galatea by virtue of her whole family being born here, all the way back to the dawn of fucking time—but for anyone without that, the region had next-to-nothing to offer.
      
    
  
</p>
<p>
  
    
      
        So it seemed to follow that if Sylvain were to settle down eventually, and Felix were to relocate again eventually, they might as well do it together. 
      
    
  
</p>
<p>
  
    
      
        “Fhirdiad, probably,” Sylvain is saying. “I mean, we all grew up there, and it shouldn’t be hard for us to find jobs in the city. Plus my mom is there, and the family business, which I’ll have to address, y’know, at some point.”
      
    
  
</p>
<p>
  
    
      
        Ingrid is sitting very still. She’s been reasonably quiet this whole time, which can mean many different things, though usually nothing good. This doesn't strike him as her angry stillness. It’s something hovering in-between worry and relief. 
      
    
  
</p>
<p>
  
    
      
        “Obviously Felix still has a lease on this place,” Sylvian continues. “So we figured, while we wait for that to end, I’d stay here for a bit. Give cohabiting a trial run.”
      
    
  
</p>
<p>
  
    
      
        “And are you ready for that?” Ingrid asks. It’s the first thing she’s said to him since he started talking, and it’s a loaded question.
      
    
  
</p>
<p>
  
    
      
        Ingrid knows him better than anyone. She’s one of the few people who refused to lose total contact with him over the years, and she knew better than most how much Sylvain sucked at facing things head-on. 
      
    
  
</p>
<p>
  
    
      
        He had tried, multiple times, to settle down. And Ingrid knew the gist of each attempt—knew that every time he had scared himself, had backed up and cut the strings and burned all the bridges while he was at it, and then got back on the road.</p>
<p>If it were anyone else, he would have cracked a joke, faked confidence. But this is Ingrid, so he takes a deep breath, and he says, truthfully, “I don’t know.”</p>
<p>“You asked me, a long time ago, if I ever thought about being a better person,” he says, then laughs. “I don’t think you really meant it. You were just mad at me. But I think about it a lot.”
      
    
  
</p>
<p>Ingrid has a look of brief guilt cross over her face, but Sylvain presses on. “I think… I think, for maybe the first time, I really want to. I don’t know how capable I’ll be of it, and I know that if I fuck this up, it isn’t going to be pretty.” He smiles. “Honestly, Felix will make certain of that.”</p>
<p>“Yes,” Ingrid murmurs. “He <i>is</i> Felix.”</p>
<p>“But—” he takes one final deep breath. “Y’know, I’m gonna try.  A for effort, right?”</p>
<p>Ingrid gives him a very unreadable look, something shimmering in her eyes that Sylvain doesn’t want to dwell on or look directly at. “I’m glad,” she says, quietly. “You know that no matter what happens, I’ll be here.”</p>
<p> “Yeah, literally, one floor above me.”</p>
<p> “Jesus,” Ingrid groans, “Trying to have a serious moment with you is impossible. <i>And</i> I’m really not sure I want you as a neighbor.”</p>
<p>“What? I’m a great neighbor! I can’t be any worse than Felix, you said yourself he steals your spices—and he probably leaves his, like, workout hype playlist blasting all the time.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, but even when Felix is annoying, he’s content to keep to himself and leave me alone while he’s doing it. Somehow, I don’t think that’ll be the case with you.”</p>
<p>Sylvain’s grin is shit eating. “Well, of course not. Where would be the fun in that?”</p>
<p> Ingrid just sighs.</p>
<p>“Besides, we’re not real neighbors, you’re above us,” he continues. “Which is probably a good thing. If we were the unit next to you, I feel like the sounds would carry easier.”</p>
<p> “The <i>sounds?</i>” Ingrid chokes. Her voice cracks. “Sylvain, if there are <i>sounds</i>, so help me God—“</p>
<p>“Well, of course there’s going to be <i>some</i> sounds—“</p>
<p> “Sylvain—“</p>
<p> “—but I mean, if you hear them and want to join us you can always—“</p>
<p><i>“Sylvain!</i>”</p>
<p>She kinda kicks his ass. He deserves it this time, so he doesn’t mind.</p>
<p>After he’s apologized and been effectively kicked out of Ingrid’s apartment, he goes one floor down to reunite with Felix.</p>
<p>It’s the first time he’s actually been in Felix’s apartment here. It’s basically exactly what he had expected—messy, with few decorations but a truly suspicious number of swords. Sylvain decides that he can elect to ignore the swords but will definitely be tidying up the place as soon as possible.</p>
<p>They spend the rest of that day moving stuff from Sylvain’s car into the apartment, unpacking and straightening up. They take unreasonably long showers—both separately and together—too excited about the concept of non-hotel plumbing. </p>
<p>They get a welcome-back dinner with Ingrid, at one of the few good restaurants Galatea has to offer. Sylvain bemoans the fact that before Felix’s lease expires, he is going to be intimately familiar with every menu item of every restaurant in this godforsaken town, and Ingrid and Felix both tell him to stop being a baby, nearly in unison.</p>
<p>Then they all go back home (weird to think of this apartment complex in Galatea as <i>home</i>, but hey, he’s testing it out), and Felix and Sylvain decide to christen the surfaces of the apartment.</p>
<p>Felix complains that the kitchen counter is cold and inconvenient, but the height difference it gives adds an interesting dynamic that Sylvain can tell he likes. Felix's terrible pleather couch has their bare skin sticking and unsticking to it every time they try to move, which makes the entire ordeal way funnier than it is sexy. There’s a near disaster that involves one of them getting slammed into a wall mid-makeout session and accidentally knocking loose one of the swords mounted to it—Felix has the audacity to be impressed with the clean slice it leaves on the wood floor.</p>
<p>Eventually, they end up in the bed, exhausted and loose-limbed and content. It’s dark now, only strips of street and moonlight peeking in through the blinds. Felix is curled behind Sylvain like a tiny big-spoon, his face pressed in between Sylvain’s shoulderblades. He idly draws patterns against Sylvain’s arms with his fingernails. There’s an odd silence hovering, something like peace.</p>
<p>“For what it’s worth,” Felix murmurs, into the bare skin of Sylvain’s back,  “I’m choosing you, too.”</p>
<p>It shocks Sylvain into being fully awake. He rolls over, traces the way the light looks on Felix’s cheekbones, his lashes, the lines of his face. He drinks it all in until he thinks he might drown in it. Then he leans in, pressing his lips ever so lightly above Felix’s brow, the simplest and easiest of kisses.</p>
<p>“Thank you,” he says. It’s quiet, but firm from the sheer force of how much he means it. He knows Felix can hear it too, because the corners of his mouth turn up, the smallest and most aching of smiles.</p>
<p>They’ll be alright, he knows. Even if it doesn’t end up pretty, or conventional—somehow, they’ll be alright.</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>In the year 1160, Sylvian Gautier was born with a soulmate. </p>
<p>A handful of years later, he met Felix Fraldarius, which will turn out to make the previous point irrelevant.</p>
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